Anchor
by outbright
Summary: AU. Toshiro is the "it" boy of his high school who has never known true friendship or love. Momo is a low-key girl with an abusive past and the ability to open his world. In turn, he wants to make her happy. He's here to help her back up. Most of all, he's determined to keep her safe. HitsuHina, R&R!
1. Chapter 1

**You know, originally I had intended to make a popular-boy-makes-a-bet-with-a-no-name-girl story, but I guess those plots are a little too predictable that sometime between the beginning and the end it starts to get repetitive, excessive, boring and just frustrating. So here's a plain-as-vanilla and possibly-cliché popular-boy-with-no-name-classmate-and-oh-wait-there's-another-girl-who-is-somewhat-involved story. **

**Based on the Mindy Gledhill song**_** 'Anchor'.**_

'_when I'm lost I feel so very found  
when you anchor me back down  
there are those who think that I'm strange  
they would box me up and tell me to change  
__but you hold me close and softly say  
that you wouldn't have me any other way'_

* * *

If it were safe to accuse the universe of any one crime, the majority of students at Karakura High would blame it for the injustice that was Toshiro Hitsugaya. As the wealthiest, cleverest, and arguably the handsomest of the male student body, he was the "it" kid of the generation and by far the most well-known name on the entire campus.

It was simply _unfair_ how much he had, really.

However, Toshiro was of a different opinion—

"I'm short," was his bitter, unchanging response to the nitwits who constantly asked him how he could be _so perfect_, and not only did he make an admirable effort to understand the course material which the others figured came naturally to him, he also lacked something else that one would think would accompany such a level of popularity: friends.

"Why don't you ever invite your friends over to play?" Toshiro's guardian, Jushiro Ukitake, would occasionally ask at dinner, to which Toshiro would reply, "I'm not four years old anymore."

In truth, Toshiro merely didn't consider any of the people who hung around him to be his friends, and he certainly didn't want to offer them a glimpse into his home life when he didn't even feel comfortable around them at school.

The fellows were a little easier to be around than the females, for obvious reasons including that many of them worshipped him like a deity. He would sometimes join a crowd of the boys as they walked home, usually to someone like Ichigo's or Kira's house, where they would congregate in the den with the television on, some snacks prepared by an out-of-sight mother left on the coffee table to be shared, and conversation that jumped from head to head like a game of Hot Potato. The atmosphere was good-humoured, light, and relaxing; Toshiro knew he could never recreate the same kind of easy-going experience and enjoyable experience at his lavish, stiff and somehow cold home.

"Hitsugaya-kun," said a quiet, anxious voice from behind him, accompanied by a wary tap on his shoulder, "can we ask you a question?"

Toshiro turned around and regarded the pair of first-year girls with impassive and bored eyes. "What is it?"

"Are you—" The girl speaking turned to her friend and nudged her sharply on the shoulder, hissing, "Hey! You said we'd ask him together!"

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Toshiro said again, without raising his voice, "What is it?"

"Are you dating Karin Kurosaki?" blurted the girl who had remained silent before, promptly blushing a beet-red colour once she realized how concerned she sounded.

Toshiro raised an eyebrow, not having expected such a question, but he could figure out the sentiment behind it. First-year girls who were brave enough to approach him were also the most transparent. "No," he said simply.

"Really?" whispered the red-faced girl, still slightly overwhelmed by her brashness.

Her friend gasped, "Seriously?"

Seriously. Toshiro had never considered that he had never considered dating. Until now, that was. Promising himself he wouldn't get irritated, Toshiro clarified in a controlled voice, "I'm serious. Is that all?"

Nodding in a somewhat giddy fashion that Toshiro dreaded would evolve into some kind of obsessive pursuit of his attentions someday, they ran off in a whole other direction, squealing to themselves under their breaths. Toshiro blinked up at the sky, finding his mind suddenly clouded by an inexplicable heaviness and confusion, and was beginning to prepare himself to forget the incident entirely when the devil that'd been spoken of arrived in a blur of stripes and black pentagons.

"Hey, Toshiro!" shouted Karin Kurosaki as she ran toward him dribbling a soccer ball between her cleats-clad feet. "Come join us for one last game before lunch is over!"

Toshiro hesitated, looking behind Karin to where her older brother Ichigo was waving at him, flanked by Renji Abarai and Ikkaku Madarame. Despite having an egg-salad sandwich he had yet to finish eating and an AP History test after lunch that he would do well to study for with what time he had left, Toshiro had a profound love for sport and the invitation was highly tempting.

"Fine," he relented, then slung his bag off his shoulder and to the ground in a single fell swoop, and shrugged his jacket off right atop it. With a couple flexes of his feet and some ankle rolls, he was sprinting toward the field, ball in possession, with Karin at his heels.

He shoved the incident with the two girls to the back of his mind with the confidence that he would not have to worry about dating and romance for quite a while longer. However, little did he know that the most discreet of gears were being set into motion to change this.

* * *

The first gear that moved was the departure of his AP History teacher.

"What? She's gone?" screeched the busty redhead that shared a seat with Toshiro.

"Quiet down, Matsumoto," barked the assistant-principal.

The principal gave Rangiku Matsumoto a calm, assuring smile and said, "She's just on maternity leave for now. Since the two AP classes she taught were fairly small, we've decided to combine them into one period so that Kurotsuchi-sensei can teach all of you."

"Kurotsuchi-sensei?" The class was in an uproar. "Which one?"

"Why can't we get a new teacher?"

"I don't wanna be with that class; it's just full of skanks!"

Looking appalled by the language and alarmed by the frenzy, the principal took a seat at the front of the room and waited for the commotion to quiet down. It didn't, however, and the assistant-principal was forced to resort to using the whistle that doubled as her Physical Education attention-getter to restore order in the classroom.

"You will keep quiet and respectfully listen to the rest of what your principal has to say," she half-hissed, half-hollered. "If there are any questions, _raise your hands like proper students instead of bellowing them out like the little animals you're all being_—"

"Thank you," the principal said quickly, "that's quite enough. Now, as you're all aware, the school is short on money. We've already cut our budget for textbooks and supplies, several teacher salaries, and funding for organized events and food. We are trying to work around your teacher's temporary leave by having other teachers pick up her classes instead of filling the position with someone else."

Looking slightly embarrassed to being forced to admit the school's cutbacks, the principal said quickly, "That is all. Nemu Kurotsuchi will be your new teacher, and this class will now be joining the other AP History class held first thing in the morning. As of today, right now, all of you will be granted independent study time during this period."

There were numerous cheers throughout the room, and as the principal and his assistant filed out, Nemu Kurotsuchi entered immediately with a swoosh of her long, black coat.

"Good afternoon," she said cordially, though not very warmly. "When I taught the morning class earlier today, I realized that they were a day's work behind this class. Therefore, I caught them up, and you lot will write your exam tomorrow when you join the others. Today can be a study period. Use your time wisely, and if the noise level gets too high, I will assign you homework for the hell of it."

Kurotsuchi-sensei was not domineering, nor doormat material, but she was far from being easy-going and she certainly could be very intimidating. Indeed, many of the students looked intimidated by her words, and instantly took to their books.

Toshiro was glad that his test was postponed; he was uncomfortably sweaty from giving his all on the soccer field at lunch. To kill time, he finished eating his egg-salad sandwich, which was a bit on the salty side and softer than he'd have liked by now, and skimmed through his notes on the timeline of communism.

"Hitsugaya-kun," Kurotsuchi-sensei called, "I'd like to speak with you."

Toshiro did not need another excuse to escape his textbook, and compliantly crossed the rom to the teacher's desk in the corner. She ended up congratulating him for maintaining such a remarkable average in a course designed to be particularly challenging to even the most gifted intellectuals his age, then asked whether or not he would like the time to study this period, since there was a favour she'd like to ask of him.

"I'm free," Toshiro said simply. After being complimented for his efforts and academic achievement, he didn't think it was appropriate to admit that he didn't want to study. "What am I doing for you?"

She reached into the desk and removed a file of papers, leafing through them until she found a stapled pair that she handed to him, along with a roll of duct tape and a permanent marker. "This is the class-list for the morning AP History class. I'd like you to assign seats to each name on this list and mark it on the edge of the desk."

"In alphabetical order?" Toshiro asked for clarification, accepting the tools from her and scanning the list of names without much interest. There were about sixteen in total, and he recognized about twelve.

"In any order you choose," Kurotsuchi said indifferently. After a split-second pause in which she turned away to glance at her laptop then looked back at him, she added, "Perks of being a teacher's pet."

Toshiro blinked, wondering if she was cracking a joke, but her face showed no signs of humour and her eyes were as passive and strict as ever. Nodding stiffly to acknowledge his duty and dismiss himself, Toshiro returned to his desk and began to study the papers.

The names he recognized belonging to the people whose company he did not especially enjoy, he felt a vindictive pleasure in placing far, far away from him. The names belonging to those who he did not mind, which were few and far-between and limited to the people who rarely ever spoke with him at all, he chose to place nearby, and when it all came down to it, he was stuck with the people who he did not recognize at all by name, so he used a decision-making mechanism with his pencil to scatter them randomly throughout the room.

The last name was a boy's name, and he would have to be Toshiro's desk partner. Wrinkling his brow, Toshiro decided to change that – he would prefer to sit alongside a female, since they were easy to deal with. On the occasion that a female would harass him for whatever reason, he could merely snap at her with rude eyes and treat her for an approximate ten minutes in the coldest disposition possible for him, and she would be disenchanted immediately, or perhaps simply realize the trouble she was causing for him, and be scared into remission.

Males, however, were different. The ones he weren't yet familiar with always wanted to get to know him, if only to make their debut in the "it" crowd, and nothing bothered him more than individuals who pursued nothing but popularity above everything else.

So, in a moment's spontaneous choice, he switched the name with Momo Hinamori's, a girl he hadn't yet met or heard of, and finalized it with tape and marker.

For Momo Hinamori, a girl who was content with keeping her name vague and her past obscure, and for Toshiro Hitsugaya, who was generally disinterested in and skeptical of love and all its promises, this was the single most reckless gesture he could make.

* * *

**This story will contain one-sided HitsuKarin, but the main pairing is HitsuHina. The hardest part of a story, I find, is always the beginning, so please have faith in my next words: it will get better. **

**Please leave a review! **


	2. Chapter 2

_'I am nearly world renowned  
As a restless soul who always skips town...'_

* * *

Momo Hinamori hadn't been in town for very long. In fact, she was new to Karakura Town as of the last summer gone by, an escapee of her own mistakes that had blindly run from her past until she wound up in a big, unknown city with not a single name around to recognize her.

She slid several watermelon slices from her cutting-board into her bento box and closed it shut. As she glanced at the clock on the microwave, she thought of her parents, who made sure to call every now and again, and to whom she owed a great deal.

She remembered the imploring, the begging for permission to move out and relocate, emphasizing the need to cultivate her independence as a young woman like it were a real and essential thing; when in truth, all she had really needed was a getaway, and she thought that her mother and father had known this, because they agreed quite readily and somewhat sympathetically.

They knew, she imagined, but never dared to hope. They probably knew all about it. They could probably hear her troubled breathing from the times she couldn't sleep at night after he dropped her off exactly when he promised her father he would, could probably recognize the confusion in her eyes when they mentioned his name, could probably feel her discomfort when they left her alone with him.

Were they sorry, perhaps, for _ever _having left her alone with him?

Momo placed a hand to her ribcage and applied a small amount of pressure. Suddenly her thoughts seemed to be infecting her stomach. Not feeling particularly well, she considered calling in sick to school that day, but decided against it upon recalling that she had an AP History exam to write that afternoon.

Slipping two tablets of generic stomach pain medication into her bento box just in case, Momo packed her things and prepared for another day at a school where she was just another nobody with no name and seemingly nothing to hide.

And she wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

The early hours of school passed without much excitement, especially since AP History had been removed from her morning and replaced with an independent study period. She spent that time moping about the school library, lurking around in the emptier corners where the older material was stored.

She didn't actually read any of it, though; she simply enjoyed strolling in solitude. Most likely as a result of her poor past experience in getting involved with other people, Momo had developed a tendency to appreciate being alone, anxiety-free, and purely in a state of relaxation. Momo had a bubbly and pleasant disposition but hers was a calm sort of cheerfulness.

The lunch bell didn't even startle Momo in the least. As the students around her rose from their seats with a severely noisy symphony of screeching and standing and shuffling out of the library, Momo stayed put, opting to wait out the frenzy until the majority of the occupants had filed out.

Momo would have days she'd call her _introvert days_, when all she wanted was to keep to herself; on such days, Momo spent her entire lunch break in the library, just poking at her food and reading something simple and mindless, like light novels or even picture books, because if she didn't have something to occupy her thoughts, she was afraid she might start to reminisce.

It never even occurred to Momo to seek out a friendly face to enjoy lunchtime with, mostly because she was even more afraid of listening to other girls voice their own relationship or love-related problems.

However, today was an _extrovert day. _Rather than be alone, she'd prefer to be in the indirect company of many other people. She also wanted to get some fresh air. The weather outdoors looked inviting and warm, and with most of the student body parking themselves out in the fields or along the walls of the school building, Momo decided to follow suit and perched herself in the grass beneath an extremely old and weathered-looking tree.

Barely three minutes into her solitary picnic, Momo was suddenly forced to duck with every imaginable reflex in her body to avoid a flying soccer ball in a heart-stopping encounter that left her hyperventilating.

"Whoa – sorry, my bad," hollered a blond boy from the soccer field, who promptly came jogging over to her side. "Sorry, these idiots don't know how to kick a ball," he apologized again, awkwardly picking up the soccer ball from where it had managed to lodge itself in the crook of two thick tree branches before it could nearly kill any other girl. "You alright?"

"It's fine," Momo assured him, "I'm not hurt." Just recovering from having her life flash before her eyes, was all. From behind the blond boy, Momo could see a short figure with hair as starkly white as the clouds in the sky leaning against the goal post with an impatience she could sense even from a distance. "I think your friends are waiting for you, though."

"Kira!" cried a girl from the field, waving her arms lethargically in the air. "Come on, what're you doing? Break is going to be over soon!"

She was the only girl in the crowd of soccer players, noticed Momo, with an edgy haircut parted down the middle, scabbed knees that looked to have endured countless grass burns and scrapes, and a toothy, tomboyish grin that was confident and at ease with herself and all of the males surrounding her.

Momo couldn't remember the last time she hadn't doubted a boy. She must have been so, prior to meeting Aizen, but all she could do at this point was wonder about that innocent, naïve, happy-go-lucky time. Because it almost seemed like a whole other lifetime away from her present self.

She watched the girl play soccer with the other fellows until it almost hurt to do so. By then, the lunch bell was set to chime at any moment, so Momo began to head back to the building to organize her books for her afternoon classes and to put away her bento.

Before she walked through the doors, however, she paused and took a last glance over her shoulder. She thought she had seen something between the soccer girl and the white-haired boy, as obscure and questionable as a mystery, but it looked like the kind of something that had the potential to hurt, and she didn't want to think about that.

It'd only bring back the memories.

* * *

Imagine Momo's surprise when she located her seat in AP History, her name written by an unfamiliar hand on a piece of duct tape plastered to the edge of the desk, to be beside the name of arguably the most popular fellow in school.

The surprise was amplified when the name happened to belong to the white-haired soccer player she had spotted for the first time just the hour before. She had always heard _Hitsugaya _being thrown around by the odd passerby or murmuring group of secretive freshmen, but she had never actually seen his face before.

Momo took care not to show her surprise, and focussed her attention on the upcoming exam. He was cordial enough to give her a polite, albeit silent nod when he took his seat, and she responded with a tight smile that she prayed would pass for pleasant.

The class fell into dead silence as the exams were handed out and one by one, each posture hunched over, each head lowered in intensive reading, and each pencil poised to record answers.

* * *

Momo saw Toshiro again after the final class of the day. When the last bell rang, she stood by her shoe locker, wondering whether or not she should take her sneakers home to wash that night. They hadn't had a good scrub since the beginning of the school year, and they were looking mighty banged up.

She shut her locker door, slung her bag over her shoulder, and headed for the exit. She was quite late in leaving the school, but Toshiro was later still. She could hear his footsteps approaching from behind as she dilly-dallied along the homebound road, and he, too, was dragging his feet as though he were immensely tired.

Momo chanced a discreet glance as she turned the corner, and saw that he was clad in a striped soccer uniform. He must have stayed behind for team practice, she figured.

He didn't seem to see her, even though she was walking right in front of him. There were a handful of other students and strollers also headed in the direction of the train station, and he seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts.

Momo was prepared to return home without exchanging a single word with him – or anyone, for that matter – but was rather astonished when he actually strode up by her side on the station platform.

He didn't speak. He barely even moved at all. She was partly in awe of his ability to stand so still and patiently, and partly uneasy from his presence. It almost felt like she was _expected_ to say something, just because he had been the one to walk up to her. She felt like she'd been _chosen_, one of many strangers, to be the person whose company he could bear to keep while waiting for the train, and thus it was her responsibility to entertain him.

It felt exactly like being with Aizen. Standing beside someone much more popular, much more respected and admired and valuable than yourself, it was nerve-wracking to Momo now, and she suffered in carefully-disguised discomfort until she finally mustered up the courage to squeak out in a passably bright voice: "You're my seat partner from History, aren't you?"

His eyes flickered from the train tracks over to her in a swift and calculating motion, almost like he hadn't thought she'd actually talk. He appeared to take a minute to assess whether or not she was worth the reply, but in the end, he said, "Toshiro Hitsugaya."

Momo managed not to scoff, but her smile reflexively tautened into the tiniest of smirks. "I know who you are, of course."

Toshiro's focus returned to the railroad. "So am I supposed to know who you are?"

"Absolutely not," Momo said quickly – _too _quickly, she realized immediately afterward, with dismay and rapidly increasing anxiety, which was only heightened when she noticed, from the corner of her eye, the expression on his face crossing the border from barely interested to somewhat curious.

He continued to stare at her for what felt like far too long, but mercifully didn't press the issue, perhaps concluding that it was simply too early to make assumptions. Momo reached up to fix her hair, tied back with her favourite ribbon (a fourteenth birthday gift from Mother), when a pesky little wind that the air had adopted shortly after midday blew the ribbon right out from her fingers.

Toshiro, who had looked as though he had been preparing to say something else, blinked up at the ribbon swirling over the edge and down onto the train track, where it settled among the rocks and dust and rails. His mouth twitched in what Momo thought might have been an amused little grimace.

He might as well have just whistled and laughed.

Momo was torn between rescuing the ribbon and _not_, but leaning more toward _not_, if only because she was terrified of being run over by trains and she didn't even imagine that there would be any way _out _of those tracks once you jumped down.

Toshiro seemed to sense her indecision and said, "I think it's a goner."

Momo shut her eyes tight, then sighed such a great sigh that her shoulders drooped adorably, and then she placed her palms to her forehead and clicked her tongue in distress. _Why am I so careless? _she wanted to scream, but she would never do something so undignified before a stranger. She almost wanted to cry. She almost wanted to laugh.

"If you think it's worth it, I can get it back," he said dully, but he didn't ready himself for it. He seemed to be certain of her response already:

"No, that's not necessary." Another sigh; not because she was a very dramatic girl, but because she just couldn't help it.

She could feel his eyes on her still, looking at her face, dry-eyed and a little miserable but manageable nonetheless, and when she thought he'd let the matter drop, he surprised her by offering an alternative.

"Here," he said, offering a ribbon that he'd seemingly produced from nowhere, "you can probably use this for your hair."

It was a turquoise ribbon – that matched his eyes, she was just now noticing his eyes – and he explained that it'd been from a community soccer league that he'd participated in, where every player had tied ribbons around their arms to signify their divisions and ranks.

Oddly touched and more than a little taken aback, Momo slowly accepted the ribbon and said, "I-I probably could." Biting her lip, she held onto the ribbon tightly, then closed her eyes and proceeded to tie her hair back again by memory.

When she opened her eyes again, he wasn't looking at her anymore, and her train had arrived, slowing to a stop in a colourful blur before their eyes. Her new ribbon tied securely around her thick, dark hair, Momo turned to Toshiro for the final time that day.

"Thank you for the ribbon," she said, sincere and frank. "I'm Momo Hinamori." Then, after a pause, added the customary "Please take care of me" and extended a hand.

Toshiro didn't waste any time in taking her hand, but the handshake was firm and brief. "I already knew you," he said, and though his expression was dull his words were smirking at her. He didn't wave or bid her goodbye as she turned to board the train, only shoved his hand back into the pocket of his coat and returned his gaze to the skies.

As the train lurched and began to move, Momo leaned against the back wall and curled her hands into fists in her pocket. Something about Toshiro Hitsugaya made her nervous, and she couldn't recognize quite why. She thought it might have had something to do with the way he had spoken that last line, even though she knew that he couldn't possibly know anything about her.

His hand had been warm, she speculated.

But Aizen's had been, too.

* * *

**I was so psyched to wake up and discover **_**ten **_**reviews for the first chapter that I promptly started editing the second. Initially I considered having the fellow from Momo's past to be unknown, but I decided that would be meaningless since all it takes is minimal knowledge of canon material and a mind capable of putting one and one together in order to figure him out. More will be revealed about Momo, and more will develop with Toshiro. Kira might poke up a bit more as well, since he's starting to grow on me in the manga. **

**And, needless to say, the Momo parts will be slightly darker than the Toshiro parts, but all in all, this story will have a fair balance of good-times/bad-times. And remember, it's only beginning. **

**So, please leave your review/comments/thoughts for me! **


	3. Chapter 3

'_And my feet will not stay on the ground  
You anchor me back down.'_

* * *

The darkness of the classroom made Toshiro weary.

He was so tired lately. Tired of staying awake, keeping busy, trying to knock the soccer team into shape, maintaining his grade point average, tired of his friends who either cared too much or too little, and tired of the monotony and boredom that high school was becoming.

The overhead projector light was dim and flickering and stinging his already-exhausted eyes. Toshiro copied down Kurotsuchi-sensei's notes on the effects of guerilla warfare as quickly as he could, then leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes while the rest of the pencils around him scratched away at their papers in lazy, half-hearted efforts to keep up.

The noise of the pencils soon dulled into nothingness, then the flashing of the overhead projector light as slides changed ceased to show behind his closed lids.

Though it felt like seconds, when Toshiro regained awareness again, it wasn't from a short rest but a half-hour-long nap.

Thankfully it was not an abrupt awakening, and the lights weren't even on when he opened his eyes, which he appreciated because it likely would have pained him. Gentle pressure was being put on his shoulder, a light touch accompanied by a soft, soothing voice: "Hey. Hitsugaya-kun, wake up."

He blinked several times, drearily, blinked until his eyes adjusted to the darkness and the still image of a calm, smiling face came into focus. Startled, he shook off her hand and straightened up, blinking and stifling a yawn as he tried to figure out what was going on.

"Class is over," Momo whispered helpfully, as she stood to her feet and slung her bag over her shoulder. "See you Monday."

Toshiro was still slightly disoriented as the students around him all began to stand and shuffle out of the classroom, Momo included; Kurotsuchi-sensei sat behind her desk, oblivious to all but her paperwork, illuminated by a tiny, cheap-looking desk lamp propped up on a stack of textbooks.

Class really was over.

He placed his hand on his desk and glanced down at the paper that his fingers came into contact with; the sheet was upside-down, for whatever reason, but he discovered why when he picked it up and stared at it.

All of the notes were filled in by an unfamiliar, but tidy, careful and thankfully legible hand which he knew to be Momo's. Confused, gratified and somewhat impressed, Toshiro slid the notes into his textbook, tucked it under his arm, and hurried out of the room.

He managed to run to his locker, grab his things, and shove his way through the throng of eager-to-leave teenagers out of the school doors and down the walk. He didn't slow his feet until he caught sight of a turquoise ribbon tucked around dark hair, making its way through the crowd at its own, reserved pace.

Toshiro eased to a stride as he caught up to Momo and said, as indifferently as he could, "Thanks for the notes" as he passed by.

Momo gave a start, obviously taken by surprise, and looked mildly flustered as she exclaimed, "You scared me! Don't do that!"

He didn't apologize. He only fell into step with her.

They walked in absolute silence for a block and a half, but it was a comfortable silence, the kind of atmosphere that never required a conversation to be tolerable. A crisp breeze pecked at their skin and the chattering of other students, pleased by the prospects and promises of the weekend, filled their ears, but he was still mighty aware of her, walking to his left, one hand in her coat pocket and the other clutching the strap of her bag.

Toshiro couldn't help but wonder if Momo might have expected something in return for writing his notes, but he wasn't quite sure how he should word his concern without possibly offending her.

As he contemplated this, the pair of them passed a tree with low-hanging branches, which caught onto Momo's ribbon and unfurled one of its loops. The end flapped in the aforementioned breeze, but before it could loosen itself any further, Momo's hand snapped up the ribbon, pulling it out of her hair and grasping it in a totally irrational fear that it should escape.

"Don't worry," she breathed, turning to Toshiro, "I held on this time."

He almost felt inclined to smirk at the misfortune that her ribbon continuously seemed to encounter, but only said, "Weirdo."

Her mouth arranged itself into a frown – or was it a pout? He didn't know; he could only see her from his peripheral vision. "At least I don't fall asleep in class!"

"I'm tired," Toshiro said grouchily. Falling asleep wasn't such a peculiarity; it was a natural response to exhaustion. "Good thing it's the weekend, because that's when I get my rest."

"Oh?" Momo wound the turquoise ribbon, much like a bandage, around one of her fists and slid her hand back into her pocket. "I thought you would be the sort to go out a lot more on weekends."

He understood exactly why she should come to that conclusion, since he _did _know a great many people and he _was _sought after quite heavily when it came to parties and outings, though he declined the vast majority of them and only ever attended soccer-related celebrations or the odd birthday party.

Toshiro wanted to sigh, but felt like that would be the wrong thing to do. Instead, he wrinkled his brow in thought, and told her honestly, "Too many friends is like having no friends. You're better off having a small group of people you trust. It'd be better that way."

There came a pause in which Toshiro wasn't quite sure whether he had said too much or too little. She seemed to be mulling over his words.

"Yeah," she finally agreed in a small voice, "I'm sure it would be, too."

He left her at the train station and continued to walk on his own, headed for a nearby neighbourhood soccer field that the school soccer team sometimes scheduled for their after-school practices, being that this field was much larger and much closer in size to the stadium they would play in were they to make it to the nationals.

But that was how Toshiro came to suspect, much to his chagrin, that Momo Hinamori was not only rather nameless in school, but also quite friendless.

Then again, Toshiro hadn't been lying at all when he told her that sometimes, he felt friendless too.

* * *

Toshiro found Renji, Ichigo and Karin, Kira and Rangiku in the park. Karin had left her backpack and coat at the foot of the scrawny-looking tree under which she normally watched the boys' soccer practices while waiting for her older brother, and had joined the others in what appeared to be a two-on-two scrimmage. Rangiku was one of the team's managers, and the only one who had been chosen involuntarily – she needed the extra credit in order to receive a passing mark for Physical Education.

"Where's the rest of the team?" Toshiro asked, annoyed, as he approached the group. "Is this the turnout for today?"

"Nah, I'm sure more will show up," Ichigo said optimistically, waving a hand in dismissal as he ricocheted a pass from Renji off of the side of his shoe into the goal. Spinning on his heel with triumph, he caught sight of Toshiro standing with his arms crossed and his expression unimpressed, and corrected himself: "Uh, yeah, you should really think about tightening the discipline around here."

Fuming, Toshiro pressed his fist to his head and growled, "How can we expect to get to nationals if the team doesn't even show up for practice? Do you think we can even win our Thursday game if this keeps up?"

"The Thursday game is in the bag," Renji hooted, returning from having retrieved the ball from the other side of the goal posts. "That high school is a sack of sore losers who can't even walk the length of the field without tripping over their own shoelaces. What're you all uptight about? We got this, Captain."

Sensing that Renji was only serving to worsen Toshiro's mood, Karin intervened: "Thursday's still a way off. There's time. Just make sure the others show up to practice on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and you'll be fine."

Toshiro glared at her. "Do I really have a choice, now?"

Without letting her answer, he called for the manager ("_Matsumoto!"_) and immediately began to coordinate an intensely vigorous practice schedule that included morning, lunchtime _and _after-school practices for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and even one for Thursday morning.

"As manager, you have access to the team's phone list, don't you?" Toshiro said. "I'm entrusting it to you, the responsibility of letting everyone know about these schedule changes. Posting it on the bulletin in front of the gymnasium isn't going to cut it, understand?"

"Yes, Captain!" Rangiku chirped obediently, leaving Toshiro feeling more uneasy than ever about whether or not she would perform her duties as instructed.

Toshiro decided to join the game and entertain himself for a couple hours while they waited for some more faces to show. However, none did, and Toshiro was beginning to grow restless.

Thursday. After the weekend, over which the team _never _met, they would only have three days to practice. They had come so very close to losing their last game – only managing to scrape a victory because of a shootout.

"What's the time?" he shouted to Rangiku, who looked up from where she was fiddling with her cell phone behind her textbook, and conveyed the answer by gesturing with six fingers.

Toshiro cursed to himself, realizing that it was growing late. He didn't think anyone else would come, and as much as it irked him, he knew it to be the cold, hard truth. Furthermore, he wanted to spend some hours in the hospital before visiting hours ended; Toshiro's grandmother had been confined to a hospital room since Toshiro entered his second year of middle school, which was when he had been traded into Ukitake's care.

He told Renji and Ichigo and Kira to continue playing as long as they liked, grateful to them for even having arrived to practice, and resolved to become stricter as captain of the soccer team. He was just turning to leave the field when Karin ran up to him and clapped him on the shoulderblade.

"Come on, stay and play some more soccer," she suggested breathlessly. "You seem like you could use a little fun these days. Loosen up! What's the matter?"

Toshiro stopped walking and glanced up at the darkening sky. What _was_ the matter with him? He felt awkward and alone. He felt like there was no way they could win their next game, let alone make it to nationals. He felt like his dreams were drifting away. He felt like his _time _was drifting away. He could feel chances, opportunities, people, all slipping through his fingers. He felt a lot of things, but there was nothing that he felt comfortable enough telling Karin, or anyone at all, because they wouldn't understand.

_"Loosen up." _Karin.

_"We got this." _Renji.

_"I'm sure more will show up." _Ichigo.

They didn't _understand._ They could only give him excuses, condolences, reassurances. He hated those, he didn't need them.

"Nothing's the matter," he lied easily. "I'm too tired to play today. Remind your brother to come to early-morning practice on Monday."

Lately a strange feeling had come over him, one that disconnected him at his hinges and made him feel like all of him was beginning to fall apart. In spite of his hard, tough character – or perhaps because of it – Toshiro Hitsugaya was slowly coming undone.

* * *

It happened on Monday afternoon.

Toshiro had bought an extra water bottle from the school store for after-school practice before he headed to AP History after lunch. He found himself deterred by Rangiku as he left the school store, again deterred by two insignificant and rather annoying underclassmen as he organized his books at his locker, and deterred a final time directly outside of his classroom door by a girl in his grade trying desperately to convince him to come to her upcoming birthday party, despite having never held a conversation with him beyond asking whether or not he was standing in the food or drink line.

"Glad you could make it to class," Kurotsuchi-sensei said icily as he somehow managed to slip into the classroom mere milliseconds before the late bell rang.

Toshiro smartly chose to ignore her, and went right to his seat. Momo had her head down, scrutinizing her notes intently in a last-ditch study effort before the quiz.

"Didn't study?" he said, although the answer was clear.

"Yes," she said, obviously quite harassed, and tucked stray hair behind her ear as she leaned in closer to try and make out the words she had scribbled when she'd been rushed. "I was too busy writing this weekend."

"For other classes?" he asked; in stark contrast to Momo, he was feeling mighty prepared for the quiz to come. He had read the chapter for lack of anything to do while Granny had napped at the hospital last night.

"Um, no, actually," she said distractedly, "it was just, like, personal writing."

Toshiro didn't quite follow her meaning, but he leaned back and stared dully at his closed textbook in front of him. "That was stupid of you," he said frankly.

And immediately wished he hadn't.

It had slipped out, just randomly, easily, like water out of his open mouth. He froze as the final word came, not daring to move, not daring to correct himself or speak any further, only waited for something along the lines of a pained expression, or an insulted gasp, or tears, or a glare, or any indication at all that his lack of sympathy was unacceptable.

As a child, Toshiro had been a bit of a brat. He liked to voice his thoughts, whether or not it wound up hurting the other children. Idiots were idiots and morons were morons and to Toshiro, there was no way around that, so why skirt the issue?

As he graduated from grade school, he came to understand that society would tolerate his honesty less and less as they aged. Friends branched off into cliques and social circles, and when one of them took offense, they'd _all _take offense.

Toshiro was rather rapidly ostracized for this reason, but as he approached middle school, he began to keep quiet a whole lot more. His opinions, he realized, were not always exactly what others wanted to hear, and though he could refrain from speaking them aloud no one could necessarily prohibit him from thinking them.

Occasionally, though, one of the harsher thoughts would slip through, when he found himself extremely frustrated or at his wit's end with somebody, and usually the aftermath of these incidents involved avoidance of one another.

At first, Toshiro had simply chalked it up to the majority of kids being hypersensitive and in denial about their own flaws. However, soon he came to believe that perhaps he was just overly critical. After all, these remarks were never made as jokes. He wasn't trying to tease or bait or poke fun at them; he meant exactly what he said to them.

Thankfully, Toshiro had underestimated Momo Hinamori. A little laugh came bubbling out of her lips, and though it was a little laugh, it sounded that much louder and clearer to him all because he had not foreseen it in the least.

Momo's laughter was short-lived, but echoed in his ears as she closed her textbook and slipped it beneath her seat, at which point Toshiro said uncertainly, "Uh … Hinamori?"

She turned her eyes on him, and he saw that her laugh had faded into an impossibly kind smile, and she simply and honestly told him, "Oh, pardon me. I just think you're amusing."

Toshiro just stared at her.

Apparently perturbed by his attention, Momo gave him a sideways glance with raised eyebrows and whispered conspiratorially, "Well, I'll work on it."

It took him a whole second to realize she was referring to her stupidity.

Then, she accepted the quiz booklet that was being handed to her by Kurotsuchi-sensei, clicked her pen, and immersed herself in the words.

Toshiro, still somewhat caught off-guard, accepted his own quiz booklet absent-mindedly. In his mind, he recounted all of the times that Momo Hinamori had ever shown her smile, whether it be when she offered to hole-punch a worksheet for him, or when he handed her some artifact that was being passed around the class, or when she greeted him silently every afternoon before class started. Somehow, thissmile had been nothing like the rest.

And he realized, that until _this_ smile, he hadn't even thought that all the others might've been fake.

* * *

**Reviews? Comments, thoughts, feedback; all highly anticipated, enjoyed and appreciated by yours truly. **

**Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, followed or favourited this story thus far. Your support means everything to this writer.**

**Apologies in advance for any sporadic update schedule that may ensue. Recently my mind has been more occupied with an original novel project that's been pending in my files for over three years, but I do come back to this story quite a bit, so don't tolerate any ridiculously long waits. If it happens, just shoot me a screaming review and I'll hop to it. **

**So, drop me a line! Tell me about yourselves, too; I like to know my readers. Let's start with something easy: what do you like about HitsuHina?**


	4. Chapter 4

'_There are those who think that I'm strange  
__They would box me up and tell me to change.'_

* * *

Mondays were always the toughest to get through.

At the very least, she had managed to bypass her usual morning by way of a doctor's appointment. However, as liberating as the freedom from not having to attend class should have been, it was anything but.

It was almost hard for her to imagine that just this morning, she had sat on the doctor's bench in complete restlessness while she recounted the awful nightmares that had led her there. She'd swung her legs for some time, then drummed her fingers on her knees, then clicked her nails and chewed her lip and scratched at bare skin that wasn't even itching. She had been a nervous wreck, that was undeniable, and it hadn't gone unnoticed by the doctor.

"So these nightmares," he'd said, slowly and thoughtfully as doctors tend to do, "they bother you during the day?" His eyes had been fixed on her frown all the while, which she was sure had resembled that of an anxious child.

"Yes," she'd said, and her voice had been hoarse, because she'd come to his office just four hours fresh from jolting out of one of said terrible dreams. "Yes, they do. All the time."

"What about school?" he'd asked, leaning forward on his desk with a focussed look on his face. "Does school provide any distractions? Extra-curricular activities? Hanging out with friends?"

Rather than admit that she hadn't really prioritized friend-making since she'd moved, Momo opted to say: "At school I'm fine. Around so many people I feel a lot safer. It's when I leave school that I start to feel jittery again."

"And you remember the nightmares."

It wasn't a question, but she nodded nonetheless, grateful that he seemed to be piecing it together.

"Normally, nightmares will stay with a person for some time after they've already awoken, but they should be overridden pretty quickly. I'm not saying everyone forgets their nightmares entirely, but they're expected to be out of mind quite soon."

He paused to take a sip from his polystyrene coffee cup and continued matter-of-factly, "Compare it to the experience of seeing a horror film – you're scared out of your wits for the first three nights afterward or so, and then slowly you start to either realize that the chances of such terrifying events that were created by visual effects teams ever happening to you are slim to none, or the film has been pushed to the back of your mind because you have other, more important things to concentrate on."

"But," Momo said loudly, in the tone that someone might have used to exclaim _aha!_, "that's not the case for me."

"And that's why," the doctor reassured her, "we'll work together to get to the bottom of this and turn it all around. Don't worry; aromatherapy and medications won't help you since your troubles persist outside of sleep, but some psychoanalysis and we might be able to figure out what's at the root of all this."

_Psychoanalysis? _Momo didn't like the sound of that, but she nodded anyhow and allowed him to take her heartbeat.

"Don't hesitate to pay me a visit for any relevant problems, you understand?" he said absently, shining a light into her left ear. "You may think that something like nightmares are insignificant and petty, as most people do—" and here Momo cringed slightly, with a half-smile, because she absolutely _had _felt that way, "—but they do have their fair share of unpleasant effects on the human body. Chronic stress can lead to heart damage, impaired thinking, an increased susceptibility to infections, even diabetes or early death. You can never be too careful about the matters that are harassing you at all in any way."

Momo swallowed, feeling some of her earlier nervousness travel down her throat and dissipate in her stomach. She was beginning to feel like something could actually be solved if she tried; she was beginning to feel the tiniest bit hopeful and in control.

"Now," said the doctor, pocketing his flashlight and straightening up in front of her, "let's start with this: is there any recurring theme or reappearing figure in your nightmares? Anyone or anything that you recognize, perhaps from life or a movie or some other place?"

"Oh yes," Momo said immediately, biting her lip. "It's _him_, it's Aizen."

"Aizen," repeated the doctor, who looked to be concentrating very hard on her words. "Right, Aizen. Wait a minute, let me get this down." In a flap of his white coat he seated himself at his desk and began to scribble on a fresh notepad. "And what relationship did the two of you share?"

Momo hesitated, not quite wanting to divulge, but she knew that if she wanted to fix anything at all, she would have to be completely honest with her doctor. She would only be wasting time for the both of them otherwise. "Aizen would … hurt me," she confessed, and far more easily than she could have imagined, but her voice was not entirely hers. It sounded distant and disconnected to her, not like someone else's voice, but almost as though she were listening to a recording of herself from the past.

"He hurt me physically … and mentally … and he just always – he never – he gave me so much confusion, because Doctor, if you'd known him when I met him, you would never have dared to think he could be capable of hurting anyone … he was so kind and gentle and understanding, and I admired him so much … and in the end he just grabbed that admiration and used it against me."

The doctor had been nodding encouragingly, understandingly, throughout her account, all the while hunched over and scrawling notes. He crossed a final _t _and closed his last sentence with a firm, satisfied period, then leaned far back in his desk chair and folded his arms across his chest.

Concerned, contemplative eyes from behind horn-rimmed glasses studied her with a sharp gaze in silence for what felt like an eternity. Momo could only stare back, unsure of what kind of face she could wear, what kind of eyes she should meet his with, what kind of emotion she should exude.

"Miss Hinamori, I think that's enough for today. You look like you have a very hard time going back to _those _hard times, so I'm going to ask you to leave it here. I'll ask around and research some potential remedies for your nightmares and anxiety, but for the meantime, I just want you to focus your efforts into moving on and improving your health, alright? Remember, needless stress is just wasted energy."

Gratified and relieved, Momo took a deep breath and slid off the bench. "Thank you, Doctor."

"Not a problem. That Aizen fellow you spoke of, m'dear, is he in jail now?"

Momo paused and swallowed a hiccup before it could escape. "U-Um … to tell you the truth, Doctor," she said quietly, "I really don't know." _And I really don't think so. _

Nodding one last time, he pursed his lips grimly and gave her a polite, tight-lipped smile as she turned the knob and left the room.

Now, thinking back to the way she had practically ran down the corridor of the professional building and sat with trembling, clammy hands the whole train ride back to school, Momo might even have called herself silly for it.

She was lingering by the school entrance, waiting for one of her teachers to photocopy for her a form she hadn't been given since she'd missed her morning classes. School had just ended and the dreaded Monday's hours were over. A striking head of white hair could be easily spotted weaving expertly through a busy mob of people, some of who were attempting to strike up a conversation with the kid while others barely had time to think before he bypassed them.

Momo unconsciously straightened up to keep her eyes on him, inexplicably feeling like grinning when she'd sighted him. Earlier that afternoon, before their quiz in AP History, she had talked to him again, and in spite of the fact that he had called her stupid, she had discovered that he was candid, dedicated to his studies, and much less _fake _than she had anticipated the popular Toshiro Hitsugaya to have been.

He was, in simpler words, much more _real_ than she.

She knew who Momo Hinamori was. Momo Hinamori was a bright, cheerful intellectual with an upbeat and clever character that others found likeable, approachable, and easy to befriend and trust. But because of Aizen, all of those traits seemed to be lost within her. It was as though everything he had ever done to hurt her had manifested as invisible hands that gripped everything that was Momo Hinamori and torn it to shreds, scattered it all over her insides, and left it for dead-and-gone.

Because of Aizen, she was even too scared to be the Momo Hinamori she once had been. She was more detached, terrified of being taken advantage of again. She was guarded, refusing to allow others to pity her, gossip about her, research her or try to send her home.

Her eyes continued to follow Toshiro as he made his way, now accompanied, she saw, by some other uniformed athletes, toward the nearby fenced field area the soccer team often held practices on.

She turned then, as her teacher called her name, and faked a quick smile as she accepted a sheet of paper still hot from the photocopier. It had become something like a bad habit by now – forcing smiles, deceiving others – but at the same time, a special kind of talent that she hadn't had before. Needless to say, though, she didn't particularly feel proud of it. Throughout the train ride home, Momo kept her head down so that she wouldn't have to meet any strangers' eyes and be forced to give them a smile.

As Momo dragged her feet up the steps to her apartment door, she felt her fingers tingle like they wanted to fidget again. She was starting to feel the same nervousness, the restlessness, the irrational fear that came from being left completely alone. She tightened her grip on the piece of paper, now cold, and gripped it until her knuckles turned absolutely white.

She wouldn't let herself be scared of him anymore.

She would show him that she was stronger than he had made her out to be, that she was stronger than him.

She would show him that the Momo Hinamori he thought he had dismantled still very much existed.

* * *

Tuesday morning began with a nutritious breakfast of yoghurt with sliced strawberries and almonds. Momo felt somehow buoyed as she dried her spoon and returned it to its drawer; she usually indulged in breakfast pastries, bagels and quick-fixes for her early-morning, before-school meals. Today had been different; today had been a step in the right direction.

Momo told herself that she liked this feeling of control, the feeling of changing herself for the better. This was the feeling that she had to hold onto if she wanted to move on from her past.

Fortunately, last night had been devoid of nightmares. Despite what the doctor had told her of medications being ineffective against preventing the way her thoughts could haunt her during the day, she had opted for some Benadryl the other night, choosing to knock herself into a dreamless ten-hour slumber.

Refreshed, nourished, and intent on distracting herself with her studies, Momo entered school with the utmost faith that the day held no troubles in store for her. Little did she know, however, that this was not the case.

By the time noon had rolled around, Momo had completed so much homework that she might have been in the clear for the majority of the week. Perhaps intensive studying could be beneficial for her present self, but she would have to find even better distractions for all the time she had freed up with her extra-hard work.

She planted herself at a wooden picnic bench by the school's east entrance and watched the soccer team as they assembled for lunchtime practice. It appeared as though their captain, who was none other than Toshiro, had forced all the sports enthusiasts and picnickers off of the field to make room for the players. She watched him as he ran back and forth, shouting pointers and correcting errors; even from a distance his dissatisfaction with the state of his team was apparent.

Momo couldn't help but notice that although Toshiro snapped and grumbled and barked at them, the players all seemed to respect their captain very much. It certainly wasn't fear, since Toshiro was not brutal, aggressive, vulgar or menacing in any way; Toshiro's skill at the game was evident to everyone, even to herself – she who knew little to nothing about the way soccer was meant to be played. The people listened to him, sometimes teased him, unconditionally obeyed him, and in light of all that, weren't afraid of him.

Momo envied that kind of aura. It belonged to a character who had the respect, attention and companionship of others without having to demand it or pay for it. _She _had had to pay for it; she had been a fool, and had given away her heart and soul for one boy's "care".

Toshiro, in contrast, was able to have friends, and admirers, and teammates, all without having to sacrifice anything. How could he act like he didn't have friends? Momo dared not believe that someone like him could feel as alone as he had implied himself to be.

Momo managed to finish her soup before breaktime ended, but not her apple. She resolved to eat it in AP History, and packed it back into her bag with her textbook and pens. The walk to class was, in short, three minutes of forcing herself out of her own self-pity and building the strength to get her through what remained of the school day.

"I've marked your quizzes," announced Kurotsuchi-sensei, as she entered the room, and immediately Momo's heart sank. "Some of you need to improve your revision skills, but I can't say I'm unhappy with the class average. The majority of students did well." Under her breath, she added, "Better than the exam, at least."

While the teacher busied herself with redistributing the marked quiz booklets, Momo took her seat next to an empty desk and began to unload her bag of the necessary supplies, including her fresh apple. She hoped to be able to finish it before any note-taking began or worksheets were assigned.

Toshiro slipped into the classroom mere seconds before the bell chimed the start of class, a feat he had been repeating for since Friday. It was no small secret that he was overworking the soccer team to extreme lengths in order to secure the win for Thursday's match.

"Well done, Hitsugaya," Kurotsuchi-sensei said, sliding his quiz booklet onto his desk just as he occupied it.

One-hundred percent.

Hinamori was about to huff, but paused with her mouth slightly open and reworked her reaction into: "Wow. You're a genius."

Toshiro blinked up from his quiz and gave her a sidelong glance. After several moments of inspecting her expression, a sort of smirk combined with a guffaw escaped the side of his mouth and he said, "You're mad about this, aren't you?"

Momo knitted her brows. "What? No. I complimented you. You're very smart."

"Yeah, smart enough to tell what you're thinking," Toshiro said. "Just admit it. It's okay."

Momo stared at him sharply, then her shoulders drooped and she sighed in incredulity and mock indignation. "You're unbelievable," she said, though her tone hinted at a smile, which came to life on her lips when she received her own quiz booklet back.

Ninety-four.

"Keep it up, Hinamori," Kurotsuchi-sensei said, and though her face was blank, Momo knew this to be high praise.

"Whoa," Momo whispered to herself, in utter bewilderment and happiness.

Toshiro leaned over and peered at her mark. "Nice," he said simply.

Momo looked up from her booklet but pointedly not at him, and said, "Oh, shut up", but then she bit her lip and an uncontainable grin appeared on her face.

"What?" Toshiro said, leaning back in his seat and watching Kurotsuchi-sensei lower her voice to warn a failing student about his grade. "I complimented you. You're very smart."

And of course he somehow managed to say this with an impossibly straight face, leading Momo's grin to widen and tighten as she held in her laughter.

Kurotsuchi-sensei killed the lights and switched on the overhead projector, commencing her lecture and wordlessly demanding silence. Momo remained in high spirits throughout what was possibly the dullest, driest and longest lecture she had ever endured yet, and beside her, she figured that Toshiro was quite alert today, as well. (At the very least, he hadn't fallen asleep again.)

As Kurotsuchi-sensei digressed from the course material and went off on a tangent about causality as a principle and its definition in relation to war and its effects, as witnessed firsthand by herself and her father, Momo's mind began to wander on a tangent of its own, and before she could stop herself, she had found herself in the dark of her memories and nightmares again.

It began with the fleeting thought of (perhaps, just maybe, if possible) considering Toshiro a friend. She would never have imagined that she would ever have even wanted to, but she was finding that he was much more tolerable, likeable even, than she had believed.

That thought evolved into the somewhat worrying prospect that allowing herself to befriend such a popular, well-known fellow would lengthen the list of people who were aware of her existence, thus increasing her chances of being rooted out as a sad little girl who had been pathetic enough to be used and could only run from it like the sorry, helpless thing she now was.

And then Aizen entered, heightening her anxiety by a factor of a hundred, and Momo did not know where to turn. It was always like this; her surroundings vanished, dissipated into molten blackness that was everywhere penetrated by images of _him_. In these moments, he filled every crevice of her mind, and he was everywhere she looked, and she could not escape.

She could hide from Aizen, but she could not hide from herself.

The images never spoke, but they moved, moved in graceful, muted motion. Sometimes the Aizen figures would be extending their hands to her, smiling the smile she once had thought was beautiful, but now knew to be dangerous; sometimes they would be walking toward her, away from her; sometimes they frowned at her, fixed her with sharp eyes expressing blatant discontent; the worst of them would simply tilt its head and gaze at her with a look that loved her for the desperate and broken fragment of herself that it had made her.

Then one of an Aizen's hands moved, and she realized it was close to her, it was coming at her, moving – ready to strike? She didn't know; she could only react. At the beginning, she had only been able to remain still and numb, perhaps traumatized or in denial, but gradually she had learned to dodge, or cower, and it never helped his mood very much, but it on the better days it saved her another blow.

Momo flinched and ducked her head instinctively.

"Hinamori?"

Blinking hard, the concerned and confused face of Toshiro Hitsugaya swam into view. His hand was in the air, in mid-wave, as though he had been trying to get her attention. Feeling suddenly exposed, Momo sat up straight and quickly looked away.

"Sorry," she mumbled, standing to her feet. She could tell that he hadn't expected her to cringe so sharply from a mere wave of his hand. Afraid of the questions that might follow, Momo slipped out of the classroom as quickly as she could, leaving Toshiro in an empty classroom with only a curiously untouched apple on the desk in front of him.

Her feet were no good, however; her steps were disoriented and her mind even more so. She was still quite dazed. The walk to her locker was long, and even trying to organize her books and homework for the night took her much more time than it normally would have. Momo had to blink and gather herself several times before she figured out the combination of notes she would need to take home with her.

However, Momo decided against returning home just yet. She didn't feel like she could handle being on her own so shortly after that episode in AP History. It would be better, she knew, if she could stay around a large group of people for just a while longer; she settled for a seat at a quiet table in the school library, where a good number of other students were catching up on their work as well, and struggled to distract herself with some overdue Math homework.

The distraction of schoolwork was definitely effective so far as Math was concerned; the frustration and primitive need to solve something that she simply could not seem to solve occupied her for over two hours, and by the time she finished the homework and began to pack up her things to go home, she was feeling considerably more relaxed.

So much so, that on her way out of the school courtyard, she was alerted by the shouting voices of the soccer players in the nearby fenced field and thought that perhaps it would be best to apologize to Toshiro while she was still willing to. She was, admittedly, not very impressed with how she had responded to his concern earlier that afternoon.

The sky was already darkening. It was rather amazing how dedicated athletes could be.

However, she lost her nerve as she neared the barbed wire fence and saw all the unfamiliar faces, heard all the unfamiliar voices.

Suddenly regretting her choice, Momo debated retracing her steps and heading to the train station, but before she could take two steps away from the fence, Toshiro, who had jogged over to his bag for a quick drink of water, unfortunately caught sight of her.

Even though much of him was in shadow, the lift of his eyebrows and the widening of his eyes was clear, the downward quirk of his mouth in a puzzled, curious frown was visible. Or was she simply imagining all of it? At this point, she wouldn't question her own insanity.

The soccer captain dropped his water battle carelessly onto the grass and crossed the field to the fence, where he met her eyes through the wires and waited for her to speak.

She appreciated the gesture, but she realized she no longer wanted it. She hesitated for several moments, moments that stretched into insufferable eternities, and the longer she stayed silent, the more confused his expression became.

Momo simply opened her mouth, closed it, then shook her head in exasperation at herself and turned away.

However, she was stopped in her tracks by the sound of his voice, low but never clearer: "Hinamori."

He could probably sense her indecision and instability, because he said carefully, "If you ever … I don't know, needed something … had anything … problems, whatever—" here he swallowed, and the sweat from his neck glistened in the low light, "—you can look for me, alright?"

Momo was caught off-guard by his words. He didn't get it. She wasn't here to ask him for any sort of help. She had only meant to apologize to him, then leave, because she hadn't wanted him to think her some sort of freak.

Now, that seemed almost inevitable.

Momo just stared at him, and when she noticed that _he_ noticed that her hands were beginning to tremble, she bit her lip, took two steps back, then turned and hurried from the fence as quickly as she could.

Once out of his sight, she let out a deep breath. It kind of hurt to do so.

He had misunderstood her intentions, but had somehow understood her feelings.

It maddened her a little. It scared her a lot.

* * *

**I'm extremely pleased with how this chapter evolved; it's probably my favourite thus far. The last line of this chapter came to me before the rest of it did, and I held onto it with my life as I tried to piece together the events that should precede it. As it happens, that's actually how I write most of the time. If you haven't already noticed, this story proceeds in alternating points of view between Toshiro and Momo – inspired by a phenomenal AsuKure fic I once found, back when I still read Naruto fanfiction.  
****  
**

**Comments and thoughts? Did you like looking into Momo's mind?  
**

**Leave a review, and let me know how this hit you. **


	5. Chapter 5

'_If I'm the one who's holding on and holding back  
__Here's how we begin.'_

* * *

"That'll be one-hundred fifty yen, sir."

Toshiro paid the spindly, none-too-gracefully aging lady behind the till and left the cafeteria without a single word of thanks. With the thumb of one hand, he pried open the lid of the plastic cup containing refrigerated rice pudding and with the fingers of his other, he groped around in his seemingly bottomless coat pocket for his phone.

He gave it a glance, nothing more; nine o'clock.

Toshiro threw the plastic lid into the trash can and began to shovel heaping spoonfuls of rice pudding into his mouth. He hadn't eaten since school let out – and only then he'd managed to scarf down a measly granola bar before soccer practice demanded his attention – and he'd come straight from the field down to the hospital where his grandmother was bedridden.

He'd stayed with her since six o'clock, feeding her supper, listening to her stories, answering her questions, savouring every last ounce of her company before it eluded him forever.

Now, three hours later, the hospital was ushering all visitors out so that their patients could be put to sleep, and Toshiro was squeezing in a last-minute dinner before he returned home. Ukitake, his guardian, never normally left food lying around; the kitchen staff ate the leftovers between Ukitake's mealtimes, or brought them home for their own families. If Toshiro wanted a proper dinner, he would have to rummage through their stores of food – which he had about as much knowledge of navigating and perusing as a child would have in a laboratory – and he simply couldn't be bothered to cook so late at night.

Especially not right after he had just paid Granny a visit. He wouldn't be able to concentrate on the food at all; he'd likely burn it. Even now, the simple multitasking of eating his rice pudding while walking home was proving difficult, as his mind could not help wandering back to Granny's condition.

She looked worse than ever. The lines in her face were very much more pronounced, hiding in their crevices the smiles and frowns that her wrinkled, perpetually-pursed lips had once been capable of. She was frail and thin, and her movements slower than before, sometimes disoriented and lost; even more lost were her eyes, eyes that never knew where to look anymore because the light coming through was dim and blurred and misplaced, and for this Toshiro was only partly distressed because he knew it would be better for her not to see his concern and anxiety.

She was losing herself, slowly and helplessly; and just as surely, he was losing her.

Toshiro could feel rage, inexplicable fury that had building in his chest, climb up his throat like fire and in a mindless, emotional moment he had suddenly whipped the half-empty rice pudding cup into the corner trash bin with all his strength. It hardly made a sound, the flimsy plastic against plastic of the cup to the bin's lining.

He paused at the corner, despite the blinking light indicating he was free to cross. He didn't move.

Toshiro simply leaned forward slightly, breaths heavy and heart heavier still, and wondered why on Earth anyone would ask the heavens for the petty things, like popularity and beauty and wealth and intelligence; all of which he had, see, but couldn't even trade for the things that truly mattered.

When the light turned green and the sign forbid him from crossing, Toshiro walked anyway.

Maybe luck was on his side.

What should that even mean?

* * *

"Sorry for missing lunch. The committee meeting was urgent. Let's picnic on the grass tomorrow."

"Can't. Hitsugaya's booked the field for the soccer team."

"Can he really do that?"

"Sure he can. Straight-A student, soccer captain, rich kid – he can do whatever he wants."

"Why are they practicing so much? He should really spare a thought for the rest of us."

"There's a game coming up Thursday. I heard Hitsugaya wasn't too pleased with the last game so he's working them all like pack mules."

"Oh, is that so? A game on Thursday? I think I'll go just to see Hitsugaya-kun! He's cute when he's determined!"

"Listen to that," Renji grimaced, rolling his eyes. "We never got enough fans as it is, and the ones that do come out, they all come out just for Cap'n."

On his left, Ichigo shrugged. "Hey, the more the merrier. If you know there's a lack of support, why are you gonna be picky with what we got?" He wiped his brow with a clean towel and tossed it carefully to one of the freshman managers who was strolling a little further away from the pack, adding, "Right, Captain?"

Renji snorted. "Don't ask _him_, he's got all the chicks cheering him on, twenty-four-seven. Of course he's not picky, because he loves it."

Before Toshiro could answer, Karin chimed, "But Toshiro doesn't care whether those girls come to watch him or not, right, Toshiro? He's too cool for them, anyway."

She sounded a little too concerned for comfort, but Toshiro decided to ignore it and simply patted his sweaty neck and collarbone with his own clean towel. Once Ichigo and Renji had disappeared into the mens' room to change out of their uniforms before class began again, Toshiro paused by the water fountain and turned to face Karin.

"Spectators are a good thing," he told her confidently. "The pressure, the noise, the enthusiasm, it's all great for morale – guys like Abarai and your brother, they're more performers than they are players. Give them an audience and they won't disappoint."

Karin pursed her lips at his explanation, but seemed to accept it as sensible and offered to take his dirty towel to the laundry room while he changed with the rest. When the entire team had dispersed to their lockers to gather their books for the classes that followed, Toshiro found himself rather dreading the next hour and a half of AP History.

Worrying about Granny hadn't left much room in his mind to think about his brief interaction with Momo Hinamori yesterday evening during soccer practice. He distinctly recalled having been surprised and a little more than confused to see her standing by the fence when he'd decided that he wouldn't survive the rest of the scrimmage without first a drink of water.

He'd seen her then, as he lifted the bottle from his bag, and it had slipped in his fingers but hadn't fallen. How unexpected, how absolutely _bizarre_, that she should appear, and she was looking round, as though looking for _him –_ he couldn't quite say how he knew this, but he simply understood that she'd come for him – and when their eyes met she'd looked startled and frightened and apologetic all at once.

His first thought was to wonder whether something had happened. His second was to wonder why she had sought him out of all the other people she could have turned to. His third was a sad one, the possibility that perhaps she simply _had _no one else but a desk partner who was hardly more than a stranger.

His first _move _was to approach her. His second was to wrack his brain for ideas, for the questions he needed to ask, the proper things to say. His third was to offer her his assistance, and though it'd seemed like a most appropriate gesture at the time, she hadn't reacted very well to it. In fact, he believed he had offended her greatly.

Now, as he dragged his feet reluctantly toward the door of Kurotsuchi-sensei's AP History classroom, he hoped that he hadn't managed to ruin the meagre, yet _existent_, courtesy that they shared as seat partners; there was, in his mind, nothing worse than a strained acquaintance.

Momo didn't speak when he entered, and she certainly didn't glare at or avoid him, but looked up with her large brown eyes and blinked, not stupidly or unkindly, and he pulled his mouth tight in a makeshift sort of smile before taking his seat next to her. She promptly returned to reading the novel that was in front of her and he mentally breathed a sigh of relief for having made it past the greetings.

Class was a quiet, yet busy, affair that day, since Kurotsuchi-sensei was running late from a morning appointment which had unexpectedly held her up an additional two hours. As a result, she had a great pile of paperwork to complete, so the second she strode into the classroom, she recited the students' agenda and asked only that they work quietly and efficiently. Their agenda included self-taken notes and a compilation booklet of various worksheets based on the blue textbook's accounts due for Friday.

Toshiro got right to work, and so did Momo, but partway through the assignment he saw that she'd been using the gold textbook instead of the blue, and mentioned it to her as casually as he could.

Momo glanced at him when he first spoke, then shifted her eyes away immediately, staring at her textbook with wide, unblinking eyes. She said, very softly and hoarsely as though she hadn't spoken in quite some time: "Oh …" He saw her throat move as she swallowed, the skin around her mouth stretched as she frowned, and in an even softer voice, she added, "Thank you."

He didn't return right to his work, however. He just leaned forward a little, sliding his workbook so that it crossed the border between their desks and trained his eyes on her text, refusing to look at her face. "You can take my answers for the first two pages then. It's fill-in-the-blanks anyway, so you'd get the same words even if you went back to your locker, got your other book, and started over."

Toshiro could feel her eyes on the side of his face, studying him. At last, she thanked him and accepted his answers, murmuring something off-handed about how she knew them to be absolutely correct, and he merely leaned back in his seat and let himself relax; he was relieved of the concentration involved in completing simple-minded worksheets, but also of the tension that had been floating between the two of them like a suspended balloon.

(Sometimes balloons exploded, and screamed as they did. In luckier instances, however, balloons could implode, and collapse softly with a sigh as they folded into themselves to sleep.)

He was glad that the balloon had not exploded.

Once she'd finished copying down his answers, Momo handed back his booklet and requested to share his blue textbook; he agreed without hesitation. They worked in silence for much of the class, and as it came time to pack up and prepare for the move to the final class of the day, Momo thanked him a third time and asked him straightforwardly whether or not there was anything she could do to repay him.

There was a great many things he could have asked her for. There were a great deal of questions he wanted answers to, mysteries he wanted solved, and suspicions he'd have liked to confirm. Additionally, he considered asking for a confirmation of whether he _had _offended her the other night, or an explanation as to _why _she had taken offense at all; he dismissed all of these possibilities when he looked into her eyes and realized that she was expecting a shallow, frank request, something that she could fulfill without potentially hurting herself in the process.

So he relented, and said no more than, "Well … I guess if you're free on Thursday night you could come to the boys' soccer game. We need all the student support we can get."

There was a pause as Momo processed this. She lifted her head a little, as though prepared to agree, but stopped herself – and not, he noticed, as if she had remembered a previous engagement for Thursday night, but as if she had realized a grave error in her proceedings and was forcing herself to backtrack.

She wet her lips. He thought they might have been trembling a little. Her eyes were indecisive and somehow weary.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, tilting her head and shaking it ever so slightly. She did look it, he thought; she seemed sincerely sorry. "I can't, I can't go, I'm really sorry," she said, voice even softer than before, if that were even possible.

He grimaced and shrugged as he shouldered his bag, feeling suddenly tired, and told her, "That's too bad then." Just as he was pushing his seat under the desk, Kurotsuchi-sensei approached the two of them, a familiar blue form in her hand.

"Hitsugaya," she said, holding up the paper, "it says here in your contact information that your guardian is Ukitake, but he isn't your legal guardian. There's no blood relation, am I right?" _And no legal custody, either. _

Toshiro nodded and said, "That's right." Leaning forward to scan the form, he added, "Is there a problem?"

She didn't answer him directly. "No living relatives, Hitsugaya?" Her pen was poised, seemingly prepared to record any new, untapped information.

"My grandmother," Toshiro explained, "is currently hospitalized. I live with Ukitake."

He saw the usual lift of the eyebrows, the flash of concern mixed with sympathy and faint shame, then Kurotsuchi-sensei nodded curtly and pardoned herself before retreating to her desk. He watched her file his form away without editing it at all.

Suddenly, Toshiro became aware once again of Momo, who had been standing at his shoulder the entire time. He had completely forgotten her presence as he spoke with the teacher, and now he found himself reluctant to face her. He didn't want to see the pity that he sensed would be there, the astonishment and the mortification and, worst of all, the expression that _claimed _to understand.

Toshiro was glad when he could not feel her eyes on him, but he certainly didn't miss the darting sidelong glances she would occasionally send his way, just a flicker beneath her eyelids that he wouldn't have paid any attention to at all had he not been paying extra attention to her at the moment. He could imagine all of the thoughts about him that must be packing her mind.

He hadn't wanted a soul to know about his grandmother. He hadn't told a single teammate, a single teacher before Kurotsuchi-sensei, and not a single "friend". He didn't even feel comfortable mentioning it to Ichigo or Karin, both of whom were very well acquainted with him and had experienced the loss of a family member in the past. It wasn't that he couldn't trust them to understand or empathize; he simply felt that Granny was a secret of his own, that something so incredibly close to his heart was far too personal to be shared so freely and easily, and a tiny, childish part of him might even have been afraid that by revealing Granny's condition, he would have a hand in worsening it.

_Like a jinx._

Toshiro gnawed at his lip and told himself repeatedly that that was pure and utter folly as he counted the seconds to the bell; he wasn't a kid anymore, and he certainly shouldn't feel the need to hide something completely normal and natural and understandable.

When the bell rang, Toshiro left the room so quickly that he accidentally knocked Momo's shoulder as he pressed past her, but he only pursed his lips, gripped his bag tighter, and restrained himself from looking back on the way out.

* * *

If Toshiro had figured that that Tuesday couldn't possibly get any worse, he was sorely mistaken.

The last class of the day saw a substitute teacher in place of the regular, and not only did this substitute teacher happen to resent Toshiro for no particular reason, he also found a certain twisted vindictive pleasure in humiliating Toshiro by smirking and rebuking all of his given answers (which, incidentally, were perfectly correct to begin with), to such an insufferable extent that Toshiro simply stopped contributing.

As Toshiro exited the school building, he caught sight of Karin waiting at her usual spot by the school gates, lacing up her soccer cleats with her indoor shoes lying half-inside of the plastic bag at her feet. Soon Ichigo would arrive, and the trio would make the short trek down to the nearby field to wait for the rest of the team; about a half-hour into the practice they would be joined by Renji, who was currently serving a week's worth of detention for a rotten-egg stunt he had dared to pull in the presence of his Chemistry teacher.

He greeted Karin with no more than a raised eyebrow as he dropped his bag onto the grass and leaned against the gate. He watched the sea of strangers flow by in waves of colour and chatter, and listened with half an ear to Karin as she babbled about a particularly nasty fellow who had threatened to spit in her lunch as she was buying it.

When his eyes happened to fall upon an impossible-to-miss turquoise ribbon in a knot of dark hair, he instinctively pressed himself harder against the gate and lowered his gaze to the ground at his feet, wanting to minimize his chances of making eye contact with her.

_Hitsugaya._

She wasn't calling him now, was she?

_Hitsugaya?_

He wouldn't answer. He refused to answer.

"Hitsugaya …"

If he did, she would only ask him questions. Worse, she would offer the same help that she hadn't accepted from him.

"Toshiro!"

Someone was calling him. It wasn't Momo.

"Toshiro, that teacher's asking for you!" Karin shouted into his ear, seizing hold of his shoulder and shaking it roughly. "Snap out of it!"

Toshiro gave a start, straightening up like lightning and blinking rapidly as the image of Kurotsuchi-sensei, who was approaching with impatient strides and a frantic expression, swam into focus.

Pretending he hadn't heard Karin, Toshiro shook out of her grasp and started to shove his way through the crowd against the current of endless teenagers. When he reached her, Kurotsuchi-sensei bent down to speak into his ear, because the students around them were sure making a riot as they left the building.

The noise seemed to dull for a second, then warped itself into an unbearably high-pitched screeching that wailed inside of him for what seemed like a lifetime. Kurotsuchi-sensei's news echoed amid the din in his head, her narrow and anxious eyes hardly even registering in his brain though they were right in front of him and he couldn't tear his own away from them.

He swallowed what saliva remained in his dry, dry mouth, and the sound of it moving down his throat was explosive, resonant like thunder, in his ears. The sensation of it all was painful, excruciating.

The world seemed to stop, time stood still, everyone else faded into the noise and didn't return into sight. Toshiro stood there, wetting his mouth over and over with no success, and reprocessing what he had just been told until it clicked.

And when it did, he pushed himself violently away from Kurotsuchi-sensei and, without thanking her, turned on his heel and ran back into the mob of people, ducking and shoving and forcing his way through.

He saw Momo, who had paused a few paces short of the gates and had been watching his very brief discussion with Kurotsuchi-sensei. His eyes, which must have been panicked, hard and desperate, met those which were knowing and silent and calm. She knew, she was the only one who knew now, though she probably wasn't aware of this honour.

"Toshiro, what's wrong? Where're you going?" Karin shouted, as he made it over to her and grabbed his bag from the ground. "What about practice?"

He almost wanted to tell her. There was a burning need in his chest to scream it, but he held himself back, gulped the words back down. His mouth failed as he opened it, his lips feeling weak and brittle. They might even have been trembling.

He looked up at Karin as he roughly wiped his bag and threw it across his back. Then, he turned around and found his eyes captured by Momo's. He took a shaky breath in a futile effort to calm himself, and told Karin in an impossibly calm voice, "Nothing's wrong. Just go to practice first; I've got something to check up on."

Momo had overheard; he could see it in her face. He thought he saw something like bewilderment in those brown eyes, something a little staggered and mystified and curious all at once.

It didn't matter right now. All that mattered was that he get to the hospital, to the emergency room, to Granny's door.

He was so incredibly close to losing the only person he had ever considered important to him. It was like a sour taste on the tip of his tongue, and when he swallowed it through, he would find it to be corrosive, acid that burned the insides of his mouth and throat and poisoned the rest of his body.

What Toshiro didn't realize, unfortunately, was that it only hurt so much because he severely needed a friend right now, and he hadn't anyone at all.

* * *

**So … what did you think of this development?**

**I can hardly fathom that **ANCHOR**'s already at its fifth chapter. Overall, I'm pleased with it; it's progressing at the pace I want it to, and I intend to make the next chapter a turning-point of sorts for the HitsuHina relationship in this story. So, look forward to that!**

**In the meantime, don't be stingy with your comments! I appreciate your readership and feedback so, so much.  
**

**Leave a review, please!**


	6. Chapter 6

'_I don't know what happened  
__I guess you finally got me.'_

* * *

When Momo stepped out from her bath that Tuesday evening, she slipped into a dark terry robe, wrapped her partially damp hair in a towel and sat herself down at the kitchen table, folding her arms across its surface and resting her cheek on her elbow. She kept on remembering Toshiro Hitsugaya, and that look of uncontained desperation he had had on his face. Her eyes stung with tears as she contemplated the feeling of losing a parent or grandparent, but she willed herself not to let them loose, telling herself firmly that it was stupid and silly to be afraid of something that hadn't even happened yet.

However, she wasn't strong enough to resist dialling her folks' home on the other side of Japan, and when her mother answered the telephone, Momo was so overjoyed to hear that clear, lovely, _familiar _voice that she very nearly did cry.

She talked to her parents for a couple hours at the very least, discussing everything from food preparation to clothing bargains to commuting. Occasionally Momo was forced to lie or be evasive, especially when it came to the matter of friends, but instead of telling the truth, Momo kept her words vague to give them the impression that she had most certainly made friends and that she was most certainly happy.

She didn't want her parents to worry for her. That worry was only one step away from pulling her back home in order to keep their watch on her.

Once the other end of the phone line fell silent, Momo shut off her mobile and laid it on her bed. She tugged the towel out of her hair and grimaced as she ran her fingers through rough-and-tumble-dried tangles of coarse hair. This would be an absolute pain to brush.

As Momo took to taming her hair for the next hour before she would slip under her sheets and dream for the night, her thoughts of Toshiro disappeared and did not return even once, not until the next afternoon.

* * *

When the clock struck noon, Momo slid her books into her locker and gripped her bento as she weighed her options: she could eat in the cafeteria, at a table that would likely not be occupied by anyone save herself; she could eat in the hallways, pressed up against her locker; she could eat in the library and pretend to work on assignments that were already completed; or she could lunch outdoors.

She stole a glimpse outside as she passed a window beneath which a small group of freshmen were playing chess, and was immediately seduced by the glittering sunshine which seemed to envelop the entire campus. In an instant she was out of the doors, seated at a wooden picnic table that she had all to herself, and enjoying a homemade mango salad out of her bento.

Momo looked to the soccer field, expecting to see the team in their usual state, but what she found was a handful of members who hadn't even bothered to change out of their outfits into athletic wear. They were merely tossing soccer balls around, knocking them about, balancing them on their heads, juggling them with their knees and ankles, taking half-hearted shots at an empty goal.

It seemed that their captain was absent.

Tired eyes opened wide in recollection of the other afternoon, recalling that Toshiro's grandmother had been in a critical condition. She wondered what his absence indicated; that Granny was recovering and required his attention, or that she hadn't made it, and he was in mourning?

Suddenly grim-faced, Momo watched the soccer team from afar with steely eyes and a distant mind. She felt somewhat relieved that Toshiro had not come to school. At the very least, she was spared from deciding whether or not it would be appropriate to ask about his grandmother. After all, she was almost positive that he hadn't wanted anyone else to know about this.

Momo was startled from her musings when she absently bit into her fork, which she realized she had lifted to her mouth despite being empty. She also realized that someone on the field had caught her eye, having happened to notice that she was staring at them.

She thought she knew him from somewhere. His hair was the colour of butter, and so incredibly _long _for a _boy's_, but part of his face was hidden by said hair and she had to admit that it helped him seem a fair deal more cool and daunting. His eyes, however, were somewhat apathetic, or brooding, and he kept quiet around his rambunctious teammates.

Properly embarrassed, Momo faked a shy smile on the spot and turned her face down, keeping them fixed on her half-eaten pile of mango salad which was quickly turning to sludge under the burning sun, whose radiance she had severely underestimated. The scalp of her head was beginning to grow warm – one of the many disadvantages of having dark hair.

Momo had looked down far too quickly to notice that the blond boy continued to study her from a distance, his expression blank but possessing a faint and curious intrigue, but his attention was diverted when a soccer ball that had been sent with all of Karin's might knocked him in his left ear mid-flight and the impact rendered him nearly unconscious.

It was truly an amazing detail that Momo failed to even notice the commotion surrounding the soccer field as they roused the blond boy and struggled to regain his senses, and still she did not seem to care as they hauled him off to the school's infirmary. She was inexplicably engrossed in eating the rest of her sloshy mangoes.

Only when she strode into AP History did she realize that something had occurred, because two other students besides Toshiro was missing from class, and a messenger from the infirmary informed Kurotsuchi-sensei of the situation.

"Well," she said curtly and unsympathetically, "I hardly see why the kid needs a whole team of supervisors," but dismissed the student with her thanks nonetheless. "Today we'll have to cover everything we did not get a chance to cover yesterday, so be prepared for a long and busy class," she warned them, snapping off the cap of a marker with exaggerated force to emphasize her point. "We're wrapping up the old unit and starting a new one; we'll begin with a rundown of what we've learned these past two weeks, then we'll move onto an activity to introduce some new concepts."

Momo opened her notebook and neatly removed two clean sheets of paper, heading them both with _Tang Dynasty: A Summary_, and started to write.

* * *

Momo shook her hair out of her towel and laid it on the back of a chair at the kitchen table as she always did. Her evenings had adopted a certain routine which, rather than finding dull and monotonous and boring, she considered to be very invigorating; for every step in her routine, she felt somehow more productive.

Seven-thirty, and she had already completed her homework, made fried rice for dinner, taken her vitamins, washed and hand-dried the dishes, and had a bath. Ahead of her still was the laundry, once her towel dried, and hopefully a reasonable amount of revision – her Math teacher was notorious for pop quizzes.

However, as Momo dug through her kitchen cabinets for an appropriately-sized container for the leftover rice, she happened to stumble upon a quaint little teacup with whimsical dotted designs adorning its off-white porcelain skin. She froze as her fingers wrapped around it from behind, cradling it in her palm and staring at it in three parts shock and one part revulsion.

This had been a gift from Aizen, a little less than two years prior. The teacup had been a souvenir from a little tourist spot that his family had visited one New Year's break, and he had claimed to have been strongly reminded of her upon seeing it. At the time, she had thought it a wonderful gift, and so romantically profound that she had treasured it so, but now as her eyes took in every last inch of its surface, all she could feel was an extremely painful burning at the bottom of her throat, searing like a potent poison.

How she hated this thing now.

Her breaths were getting heavier, longer, harder. Her vision was blurring every now and then, and her limbs simply wouldn't move. Her grip, however, was tightening at a terrifying rate, and she could feel the cold of the china stimulating her fingers as she pressed it, wanting to shatter this piece of him in her hand just as he had shattered all of her in his fingertips.

Suddenly, a sharp gust of wind blew the tree branch right outside of her apartment window against the pane, and an unpleasant screeching sound caused Momo to cringe. Her shoulders tensed but her hand jerked, and the teacup slid slightly down her palm. Taking a single shaky breath, Momo engulfed the teacup with both of her hands and placed it carefully back into the depths of her cabinet. She would find something to do with it another day. Not now, not while she was so unstable.

Momo shut the cabinet door, the rice container forgotten, and slowly made her way to her bedroom (the laundry also forgotten). Instead of settling down with her Math textbook and notes, as she should have been doing, she climbed into her bed with an old photo album, and leaned her head against the wall as she forced herself to flip through it.

Page after page of nostalgia; page after page of things that made her choke, tear up, catch her breath, wince. She didn't know which pictures of him hurt her more to look at – the ones where he smiled, or the ones where he didn't. He was sly and cunning and never any good, and she could see all of that now, in those calm, dark eyes and those gentle lines of his face.

Momo shut the book lightly, head still against the wall, and shut her eyes. She felt like she really wanted someone right now, anybody, and not necessarily to try and understand her but simply to be there for her. She had no one, not even her parents, because she was far too ashamed and afraid to tell them the whole truth about Aizen. And she didn't doubt, either, that she might even live out the rest of her life without telling a soul about it, and none of that mattered, because she didn't want to tell her story; she just wanted another chance.

She just wanted a new life. A new world with new opportunities and new people and new experiences. Most of all, she wanted a new heart, one that wasn't fragmented and fragile and constantly in fear of being derailed once again.

Sighing, her eyes slowly eased themselves open, and Momo spent much of the remainder of the evening in that position, curled up along the wall of her bed, staring at the cover of the photo album – a picture with herself, Aizen, and several other familiar but forgotten faces. It had been taken when he and she had still been no more than fellow committee leaders, a little before she'd reached out and begun speaking to him, and far before she had learned anything of his nature.

Momo's mind hovered on the turning point that now seemed so blurry, distant and obscure. She tried to remember how the transition had been so easy and unnoticeable, the shift from kind to merciless. Had there been a time when he'd begun to change, or had he simply started to show more of his true colours?

She still didn't know. She was still scared to find out.

* * *

Thursday at lunch, Momo avoided the outdoors and chose a quiet seat in the library to give her Math notes a last-minute glance. Next was AP History, and she wouldn't get a chance then to study. Last night's fried rice she had shoved into a pathetically oversized Tupperware container, and it sat at her elbow, half-eaten and neglected.

She was in the classroom earlier than most, and Kurotsuchi-sensei hadn't arrived from the staff room just yet. Sitting in the nearly empty room with only two other students for company, Momo pulled out a novel she'd been reading and quickly became immersed in it.

However, she did not fail to miss a very faint, very particular sound: that of Toshiro Hitsugaya entering the room.

_ I see, _she thought to herself, blinking as her thoughts lifted from fiction to reality. _I even know his footsteps. _

She dared not look up as the sound approached her, grew slightly louder and slowed and stopped as he dropped into his chair. He didn't extract his supplies from his bag immediately; instead, he seemed to be resting in his seat for the several minutes that he could before the lesson began. She figured he must have been tired, trying to gather the soccer team together in their last lunchtime practice before tonight's game.

He didn't say anything to her (_why should he?_) and she didn't say anything to him _(how could she?)_. She didn't want to address any of the issues that were hanging between them at the moment: not the fact that he had seen something was troubling her, not the fact that she'd avoided his offer of help _then _declined an invitation to attend the soccer game, not the fact that she had stumbled on the news of his grandmother unintentionally. Most obviously, though, there were simply so many differences between them.

Kurotsuchi-sensei then swept into the classroom, the soft swishing of her robe sounding like crackling lightning in the tension and silence. Momo pursed her lips and shut her novel, sliding it back into her bag and withdrawing her notebook.

As she opened it, she saw two copies of _Tang Dynasty: A Summary _notes, and remembered that she had written an extra set for Toshiro. Her shoulders stiffened and she seemed to curl into herself, peeking out from the corner of her eye at the boy next to her. Should she give it to him? Would he want it, or would he rather Kurotsuchi-sensei photocopy the original set for him?

Momo remained in this state of indecision for a good fraction of Kurotsuchi-sensei's overview of their upcoming unit exam. She was spared further stress when she realized that green eyes were staring at the side of her face.

Her own brown eyes widened like a child caught in a forbidden act. Perhaps if she hadn't been so arrested in her surprise, she would've made an embarrassing noise.

"What is it?" he said, upfront as ever. She noted that his face was rather blank, and though it was not curious or amused, it was certainly not unkind or rough.

Momo collected herself, and with a slow movement, handed him the copy of notes. "You weren't here yesterday," she said, feeling rather stupid for doing nothing more than stating the obvious. "Um, we took these."

His brow wrinkled in scrutiny as he scanned the paper. "Right, thanks."

She merely nodded, and pretended to return her attention to the teacher's lecture, but she couldn't stop feeling uncomfortable under whatever it was that was stifling the atmosphere.

It might have been guilt, or shame, or regret, that she had refused his kindness on two occasions already, while offering him little more in return than measly notes that were written in handwriting that fell humiliatingly short of his own perfect printing. Perhaps, on the other hand, it was simply that she was convinced he wouldn't want to interact with her any longer, whether it was because he was respecting her walls or annoyed with her reluctance to open up.

For this reason, she was mightily caught off guard when _he _actually spoke to _her_.

He'd waited until Kurotsuchi-sensei had finished talking. She'd provided a small list of pages from the textbook that she required them to have read before tomorrow's class, and then left them to their own devices while she focussed on her own paperwork. As chatter among the other students rose to a little more than a low buzz, Momo felt herself relax. Sometimes, the quiet could be the greatest solace; at other times, though, it was just a killer.

The pair of them were reading obediently from their books, elbows on the table and bent over the text, Momo shaping the words soundlessly with her mouth and Toshiro gliding his eyes across the page, back and forth, through the rows of sentences without a single movement.

So when he spoke, it actually took Momo a moment to realize that _he _had been the one to talk, and that she hadn't just happened to overhear a part of someone else's conversation very clearly.

"So, my grandmother's doing fine."

Momo stifled her initial response – bewilderment – and kept her head lowered. She was bewildered in part because she had almost completely forgotten about his grandmother being in an emergency condition just the other day, but also because she hadn't expected him to mention it. She recalled that she had been scared to ask about his grandmother sometime before, so she never could have imagined that he would tell her about it of his own free will.

Maybe he'd told her because he'd needed to let it out. Maybe he'd told her because he had no one else to tell.

Once this thought struck her, she couldn't get it out of her head.

She began her reply with a pleasant "I'm glad to hear that." Her voice seemed to cut itself off, which was an obvious indication that she still had more to say, and Toshiro – who, Momo was starting to realize possessed an extraordinary ability to read people and their true intentions – somehow understood this. He kept his eyes trained on her, but she thought she spied a very subtle, understated gentleness in it; something that didn't demand her to ask what she wanted to know, but waited for her to pull up the courage to.

"Why is it," she said, practically in a murmur, "you won't tell any of the others?"

Upon hearing this, he blinked, then sharply straightened up and drew a little ways back from his desk and from her. Leaning back in his chair until his back was slumped against the seat, he turned his face away from her and emitted a noise that resembled a scoff, or derisive chuckle.

For a while, she thought she had offended him, or angered him. Shrinking back into herself, she sighed back into her previous reading position and tried to bring her concentration back to the words on the page, but she couldn't do it. On the other hand, though, she was positive that he wouldn't want her to say anything more, and she wouldn't dare to. She surely didn't want to take the situation to a point any worse than it already was.

He stayed that way, still not looking at her, or at his book, and eventually he even crossed his ankles and folded his arms across his ribcage, as if to demonstrate that he intended to remain in this pensive position for a long time.

Momo, who was unable to get back into her reading, noticed right when he turned his head back to stare at the front of the classroom, and braced herself for what was coming when she saw his mouth open, seemingly in slow motion.

"I can't tell them," he said, half-disdainfully, half-pitifully. He looked a bit sorry for them, and a bit sorry for himself. "It'd just – just worry them or something. They'd obsess over it, overthink it, feel inclined to be stressed or sad or whatever. You know? – they'd be worried for Granny's sake, worried for _my _sake … I don't know, I just – I guess I don't really want to do that to them. Or to me."

Momo was speechless. Her earlier dread had melted away, replaced by a sudden feeling of wretchedness. She knew now that she had sorely underestimated his problems and overrated his popularity.

Swallowing her disappointment in herself, Momo could only offer a silent nod of understanding in response. She was careful not to look at him again for the rest of the class, mostly because she couldn't trust her eyes not to show the pity that she felt.

She thought back to how she had, just minutes before, pegged the pair of them to be so irrevocably, quintessentially dissimilar, incompatible, worlds apart. How different they were, she had believed; and now: how very alike.

* * *

That night's supper was an early one. Believing she was on the verge of a sickness, Momo made herself a bowl of hot, steaming corn porridge with cooked eggs and warm bread. After her comfort meal was over, Momo took a hasty shower and was quickly left with much more spare time than she could possibly hope to fill.

Homework was already done. She had finished reading the rest of the assigned History pages on the train ride home. She had spent all of Math class writing a pop quiz – the one she had correctly anticipated and was fortunately able to prepare herself for – and the apartment did not need any urgent cleaning.

As per usual, she hung the wet bath towel to dry on the back of a chair and strode into her room, her damp feet leaving faint prints where her footsteps pressed them into the cold linoleum floor. Combing her hair as she walked, Momo's one-track mind was pondering possible methods to overcome the severe tangling she experienced daily.

Though when she saw what was still lying at the foot of her bed, she stopped dead in her tracks and felt her fingers tingle with an icy numbness, one that caused her grip to loosen involuntarily on the comb. Momo closed her eyes and struggled to regain sensation in her hands, determined not to look at that book.

The photo album she had been flipping through just the other night was still there, in plain sight, and taunting her from where it rested on the floor. It looked like it had been cast off, rudely – and it _had_ been – but it still somehow glared at her, compelling her to pick it up, to look through it all again, and look longer, look closer, look harder: hurt more.

"No," Momo said aloud. "No. It's time to change."

To drive the point home to herself, she crossed the room, grabbed hold of the book so tightly that her knuckles paled immediately, and thrust it violently into the back of some unlabelled drawer that appeared to contain a mess of pens, old key-chains and various other insignificant collectibles and useless items.

It was time, she decided, to make an intervention for herself. It was time to listen to her own advice and let go, move on, change herself. She needed to meet more people. She needed to get back to who she had been before, who she really was – the bright, upbeat girl with a positive outlook who was confident about herself, appreciated her life and all the people in it, and wasn't afraid of anything.

All she needed was a way in. All she wanted was someone who would take a chance on her.

And she already had one. She was fully aware of it. At the moment, he was a short train ride away in a little neighbourhood arena, in a school uniform, in the midst of a crowd of spectators, among a team of other boys.

Toshiro Hitsugaya was her second chance.

* * *

She fidgeted throughout the entire train ride. She ran until her legs ached, but she refused to give under the strain. The exhaustion from the running, the urgency, the impatience – it was wearing her down, but the pain was secondary to the pain she had known all this time, it was absolutely nothing compared to the thought that she might never fix herself again.

The sky was dark and inky black, but the area was illuminated by the striking lights all along the grandstand and shining from each corner of the field. The screen above showed Momo a disappointing score, but time had not yet run out and the game seemed to still be in its early stage.

The white hair was hard to miss. Additionally, his height set him apart from the others quite obviously, so Momo's eyes tracked him down almost instantly, though she was made to wait for an intermission before she could try to get her word in.

She stood down by the stands, at the side of the bottom row of seats, not bothering to sit down. Scanning the crowd, she was able to recognize the girl with cropped black hair parted in the middle, with a girl who Momo believed to be her sister (she couldn't be so sure, though, since their features – most notably their hair colours – were a far cry from being at all similar). Then again, their older brother had _orange _hair by some peculiar twist of nature, so Momo wouldn't question it.

They seemed to be very enthusiastic in their cheering – clapping and waving their fists and hollering with their hands cupped around their mouths. She couldn't quite make out just who they were rooting for, though she automatically assumed it to be their older brother. Perhaps, though, the dark one would also root for Toshiro.

When the horn sounded to signal the intermission, Momo followed her high school's team closely with her gaze as they herded over to their bench, wiped their brows and necks with their towels, glugged water, and caught their breaths. They were engaged in a brief lecture from their coach, but soon dispersed to rest and restore their energy before the next leg of the match began.

She watched as Toshiro veered off into the outer edges of the field, disappearing behind one of the stands of seats, and Momo hurried over. She found him sitting against the wall, his knees up and his elbows resting on them, water bottle in hand and a towel wrapped around his shoulders. His face was upraised, head thrown back, eyes closed.

She was glad when she realized that she didn't feel an ounce of nervousness.

Approaching him, her footsteps made no noise on the grass. When she spoke, her voice was clear and sure and assertive, and for that she was relieved. The time to be closed-up and shy, and guarded and lost was over.

"Hello, Hitsugaya-kun."

His shut eyes shot open with the force of a bullet as her familiar voice registered in his mind. They searched in the space above and before him until every detail of her face had focussed in the darkness.

"… Hinamori?"

His water bottle dropped from his hold onto the grass, and he clambered into a proper, upright sitting position. "What are you doing here?" After a moment's thought, he added, "I thought you said you couldn't come."

"I had to," she told him. Suddenly she didn't know what it was she wanted to say, exactly. This was going to be difficult to convey, but it was now or never.

Toshiro, too, suddenly looked uncomfortable, but for a whole other reason. "No, uh, you know I never meant to force you or anything – I get it if you've got other things to do, I wasn't—"

"That isn't what I meant at all," she assured him kindly. "I do have time to be here. I can even stay the whole game, if you'd like."

"Well," he said, somewhat awkwardly, "uh, if you could, I guess. Sure, do whatever. If you like it."

Momo inwardly laughed. _Like _soccer? She hardly even knew the rules of the game. Outwardly, though, she maintained her usual soft, calm face.

"Hitsugaya-kun, I'm sorry for having been so rude to you." She bowed her head gracefully and when she lifted it again, she was smiling. She was sure he could only see the shadows of her dimples, though. "That was unforgiveable of me."

He looked confused, and with good reason. "What are you talking about?"

Momo paused, then slowly, she lowered herself to the grass and sat on her knees so she could address him face-to-face. She tucked a stray hair behind her ear and said, "I'm talking about how you tried to help me and I was always driving you away. I shouldn't have done that."

Toshiro took a minute to understand, and when he did, he shook his head and turned his eyes away from her, into the distance. "No, I shouldn't have asked. It was personal."

Her smile grew. She should have foreseen that he would try to pin the fault on himself. A character like his had always given her the impression of being very humble, very noble – gallant, if you would.

"Yes, it's personal," she admitted, "but I'm glad you asked, really. You were nice to have cared." Taking a deep breath, she continued, "And until now, I'm sure you've realized this, but I – well, I'm kind of cautious about depending on other people."

Toshiro looked at her again, and after a moment's silence, smiled. Not a smirk, or a sardonic or wry smile, but a small and simple smile, one that told her to just take it easy. She couldn't say quite _how_, but it stood out to her so clearly, even in the dark. Perhaps because she'd been looking for it, waiting for it.

"I'm sorry," she said again, this time in a whisper, and her voice broke. "I really need you right now, Hitsugaya-kun. I was just stupid, and scared, but no one gets by on their own—"

Toshiro tilted his head and clicked his tongue. "Even me, if you can believe it," he interrupted.

Momo cleared her throat, slightly taken aback, but she leaned forward and said gently, "I know."

He just stared at her.

"I know," she repeated, "and I'm asking you to depend on _me_. The things you can't tell the others, I'm here to listen to. I can't promise you that I can help you or understand you but I can say for sure that it helps to have someone there to talk to."

He looked down at the ground. All she could see were the lids of his eyes, the faintest hint of shadowed lashes against pale skin glistening with sweat.

"Hitsugaya-kun…" Here she stopped, contemplating whether or not she would be able to say the words she had planned to, but ultimately decided that she _should, _not only for his sake but also for hers.

Retrospection, however, had sharp edges, as Momo knew very well, and some of them got caught in her throat. She practically had to force the next few sentences out of her lips. "I – I used to have a great life," she choked, her fingers wrapping around her wrist and rubbing it rhythmically. "I used to have friends who loved me, and it was great. And then I got hurt once, just once, and I threw it all away, and I got scared to start over."

She wrung her wrist and let out a stifled sob as a sudden flow of tears welled up in her eyes and threatened to fall.

"Dumb," she hissed, "dumb, I'm so dumb." Three large drops plopped down into the grass, one after another.

Finally, Toshiro glanced up from the ground. His face looked pained, and she imagined that her own expression at that moment was not a very charming one, but he also looked hesitant, as if he wasn't sure how to proceed.

Momo wiped her own tears, refusing to let herself get any more flustered than she already was. "Hitsugaya-kun, having real friends is great. Letting people _know _you and _get _you and try to help you makes life so much easier and a lot more fun, and I'm sorry if I'm mistaken but I think we both really need it."

She let out a shaky breath and stood up, brushing at a wet cheek and smiling the widest, most genuine smile she had smiled in months, despite it being through tears.

As she smiled, she held her breath.

Then, from below, she saw a glint of white teeth as her smile was met with what she knew to be the most brilliant grin in the universe, and when she extended her hand, he took it without hesitation and got to his own feet.

"Agreed," was all he said.

Directly above them, the sound of the horn from the speaker sounded once again to signal the end of intermission. The game was due to resume in one minute.

"Come on," she murmured. "You've got a game to turn around."

Toshiro patted down his uniform and bent down to pick his water bottle up from where it lay on the grass. As he took a long drink from it, he nodded in reply.

It was a short walk of several steps to the edge of the playing field again, but before he left her to join his teammates at the bench, he swiped two fingers firmly under her eyes and said, "Right, cheer up, Hinamori – we're gonna win this, you got that? It's gonna get better from here."

She gave a soft laugh as she watched him jog further and further away from her, understanding that he wasn't quite talking about the game anymore.

* * *

**My favourite chapter thus far, so I implore you to leave me your thoughts.**

**If you can believe it, I spent an entire week on this piece, and cleaned it in a hurry so I could post it for my readers. After all, who wants to start the week on a sober note? Let's all get drunk off of HitsuHina.  
**

**So … review! Comment, give feedback, drop a line, leave a word. Looking forward to hearing from you all. My endless thanks for your readership and continued support.**


	7. Chapter 7

'_If there's a hole in your heart,  
__You've got to pull it together;  
__It takes courage to start  
__But now is better than never.'_

* * *

Fridays were unconditionally "good" days, and today was no exception. Responsible for part of the enthusiasm was the mere fact that the end of the week had finally arrived, and the other part of it was due to the last night's victory.

The members of the soccer team were in such high spirits that none of them were able to concentrate on their studies throughout the entire morning, and when they congregated in the cafeteria for lunch – something they hadn't done since the season began – there were a great many stories and individual accounts to be shared, which included heavily exaggerated teachers' reactions and no shame whatsoever.

Hilarity ensued, but as was typical of Toshiro, he didn't participate in the amusement, and he made no effort to show his great elation. He might even have been willing to bet that of all the members of the team, _he _was the happiest of them all, for their triumph meant entrance to the nationals, and nationals had been his goal all along.

He ate his lunch, and although he was surrounded by rambunctious buffoons in the midst of re-enacting their tribulations of that morning, he found peace in their excitement. He wondered how long this euphoria would last; he wanted it to stay around for a little while longer.

"So, Cap'n," said Renji, drawing Toshiro's attention, "when's our first playoff game? And who're we playin'?"

"Wednesday," Toshiro answered immediately. He had all the dates from there-on-out memorized. (Truthfully he had memorized them before they had even made it into the playoffs, but he didn't like to admit it.) "We take a bus out from the school in the morning to the next prefecture, then we hang out and warm up there until the game. Kickoff at two."

"We gedda miff a whole day of claffef?" Ichigo said, through mouthfuls of bread.

Rangiku, who was in the midst of chugging from an opaque water bottle which could not possibly have contained any beverage acceptable for school, slammed her drink down on the tabletop and messily wiped her mouth with her sleeve. Slick lips curved into a sly grin as she squealed: "I know! Isn't being a part of the soccer team so fantastic?"

"I'm cutting you off," Toshiro told her firmly, taking the bottle from her fumbling grip and sliding it into his bag. "You've had enough, Matsumoto."

"Captaaaaaiiinnnn," she whined, feebly clawing across the tabletop. "Just a little moooore."

"Maybe if you'd showed up to last night's game like you were scheduled to, you could have it," Toshiro snapped. "Not even calling to cancel, Matsumoto? We postponed calling one of the other managers until half-time because we didn't know whether or not you'd arrive late."

Suddenly the table had gone quiet, and very uncomfortably so. Even Renji and Ichigo, who often shrugged off Rangiku's tendencies and laughed at her mistakes, were listening intently and solemnly. From the corner of his eye, Toshiro could see the slow-moving jaws of the other team members as they chewed their food in silence, all eyes on Rangiku.

"It wasn't anything," Rangiku mumbled, her voice high-pitched. She slid her elbow onto the table and nestled her forehead into the crook of her wrist like a tired child, and hid her face behind her tangles of long, orange hair. "Something came up, okay? Stop it, Captain, you're making me feel guilty."

Toshiro bit back the urge to mention that she should, and chose to change the subject to revising the team's current practice schedule, but did not return Rangiku's water bottle. She really did not need to drown whatever sorrows she was harboring in a manner that might land her in serious trouble with her teachers.

"I'd be up for practicing over the weekend," Renji contributed, reducing a fistful of crackers to powder in his fist and dusting the flakes off of his palm into his soup. "I'm seriously so fired up for the playoffs; feels like I could play soccer everyday now."

Toshiro understood the feeling. He appreciated Renji's keenness, but by the shakes of some of the heads that he was receiving in response, he guessed that most students were not interested in sacrificing some of their precious weekend.

"What about lunch? Do we still like the lunch practices?" Toshiro surveyed their expressions; the very mention of the lunch practices seemed to bring unhappiness.

"I miss eating food like this," Ichigo said, part-mournfully and part-hopefully as he visibly savoured the last bite of his bread roll. "The lunch practices were brutal. Let's stick to after-school or early-morning."

His suggestion was met with unanimous nods all-around. Figuring that it would be unwise and generally useless to try and force the team into a strict practice regime, Toshiro decided to take what he could get and agreed with Ichigo.

"Right then, it'll be practice every day before and after school, unless anything comes up, and unless we lose in the first round of the playoffs."

"Impossible," Renji scoffed, smacking his lips obnoxiously as he slurped a spoonful of lumpy soup. "We're unbeatable!"

Toshiro was tempted to point out that they had only barely made it into the playoffs with their most recent victory, but decided against it for the sake of preserving whatever spirit he could at the moment. Excusing himself from the table, he headed to his locker to prepare for his afternoon classes.

On his way to his locker, he dropped into the library to return a reference book he had checked out two weeks ago. As he handed the book to a grim-faced, spindly librarian, a familiar turquoise ribbon knotted around dark hair caught his eye.

A short distance away, sitting beneath the clock at a table by her lonesome was Momo Hinamori, enjoying a solitary meal while she read from a novel held open in front of her by her pencil case and textbook. Even the way Momo ate seemed to suit her very well – her motions were slow, attentive, careful; she held her chopsticks properly, never shoved food into her mouth, and was so dainty with her eating that she didn't even have any need for a single napkin. On top of all of that, her posture was so impeccable that one would imagine she'd spent her childhood with her back nailed to a board.

Though her manner of eating did amuse him somewhat, for whatever reason, Toshiro found himself intrigued by her inclination to be alone. Or rather, how _comfortable _she was alone. Toshiro was the type of person who, as a child, had always wanted friendships, acceptance, and company, but was deprived of it due to his seriousness, and admittedly having been a bit of a brat. Consequently, he grew used to being on his own, but he rarely chose solitude for himself.

Furthermore, Momo was a very bright girl with an easygoing attitude and natural kindness. It was hard to imagine that she could have any trouble making friends; he confirmed this as he watched her pass a fallen pencil on the floor back to its owner, a geeky-looking freshman who had apparently gotten too rowdy with his pals another table over.

No, he knew for sure that the problem wasn't her likeability factor. She just didn't seem to _want _or _ask _for friendship when she interacted with others, indicating to them that she was perfectly fine and comfortable as she was. She never made an effort to spend more time with other people, never introduced unless explicitly asked to, never asked to have lunch with them, never offered to be someone's partner for projects, asked only teachers for help, and never asked for favours from anyone else.

Why _was _that, exactly? She had asked _him _to be her friend.

Thinking back to last night's soccer game, he _had _gotten the impression that she was asking him to be her friend on some sort of impulsive decision. She had seemed very spirited that night, much bolder than usual, but somehow determined and fierce, and he wondered if perhaps beneath her calm, polite demeanour she was hiding a formidable and attractive personality.

Toshiro blinked out of his reverie of thoughts and stared at Momo for a second longer. Externally, she didn't look like she had a single worry. But last night he had seen it, her resolve and her desperation, her plea for his support.

And he wasn't sure why, or how, but he intended to answer it.

* * *

As Toshiro closed his locker, he was cornered by a girl whose name he did not remember. He did recognize her because she was a manager of the boys' soccer team, though she was probably closer to being the coach's personal assistant than the team's manager.

"Hitsugaya, do you have a minute?"

Her face looked oddly solemn. Toshiro inwardly sighed, having anticipated that everything good that had emerged from last night would be thwarted, sooner or later.

With a highly resigned air, he raised an eyebrow and feigned interest. "Yes, what's the matter?"

The girl glanced furtively over Toshiro's shoulder once before she spoke, and when she did, it was in lowered tones and accompanied by a grave narrowing of the eyes. "That blond kid on your team – Izuru Kira. Is he a good player?"

Toshiro stared at her. Shouldn't she already _know_? She carried the data and updated the players' stats on a regular basis.

Sensing his confusion, the girl rolled her eyes and leaned in closer. "I meant," she hissed, "is he _valuable_."

Toshiro's other eyebrow lifted. He wondered where she was going with this. Folding his arms slowly over his chest, he met her irritated eyes and said, "_I _chose him for _my _team. What do _you _think?"

Biting her lip, she retreated a single step and took a deep breath. The glance she gave him in response was not scornful or shocked, as he had expected; rather, it seemed to pity him.

Upon seeing this, a sort of inexplicable anger began to simmer in his throat. What was going on? Why was he receiving this sort of look?

"Tell me clearly what the issue is," he said through his teeth, "and I'll figure it out."

Go on.

The girl licked her mouth and swallowed – nervous, he supposed – and her grip on her textbooks tightened. She pressed them to her chest and then swallowed again, opened her mouth, closed it—

"Get on with it," Toshiro demanded. "I have a class to get to."

She seemed to realize this, as she was bumped none-too-gently by a soft-spoken girl who was rushing to her next lesson. Said girl ducked her face, which had gone bright red in an instant, and squeaked out a breathy apology as she sped by.

"Fine," said the manager, and she looked away from Toshiro at last. "The coach told me to tell you. It seems like Kira has been involved in a few ugly incidents since the beginning of last month. He's suspected for gang activity and if his participation in any crime can be confirmed, we'll be out of the running for this."

Kira, Izuru Kira, _that _Kira, blond and fumbling and dreary, bored Kira —

Incidents. Ugly incidents.

_Suspected._

Gang?

Crime. Crimes. Any crime, any at all—

Out.

**Out**.

"Out?" Toshiro repeated. It was the only thing he could say.

It was all too much to comprehend. Kira. No _way_. There was a mistake, something was wrong, something was a lie, Kira could not be the lie, something was off, something was incorrect, something didn't belong, something wasn't right, there had to be—

"—a mistake." The word sounded feeble, like his voice had barely been able to hold it together as he said it aloud. "There has to be some—"

"There isn't one," the manager assured him. She still didn't look at him, but she seemed a bit more comfortable now, as though she had expected this response. "We've checked with the police four times over. We even tried to interfere with the investigation, or at least postpone it, but that's not allowed. If they need to, they'll take Kira away, and—"

"—and without Kira we'll be disqualified from the tournament," Toshiro finished, in a horrific realization. He had memorized the tournament rulebook from cover to cover, and one of the most significant conditions was that player changes were not allowed under any circumstances. On the occasion that a team became short a player, they would be forced to forfeit. Changing players meant changing factors, and when factors changed, the room for error in measurements and rankings grew. It was a scientist's expectation, a meticulous and very specific approach, and it was but one of the things that made this the most prestigious national high school sports tournament.

"It's not too late," she said grimly, "to change the lineup before we submit it to the board."

"Kira's a strong player," Toshiro said, more to himself than to her. "We need him."

A second bell pierced the tension that had fallen around them, and with a sad shrug, the girl turned away and raised a limp hand in farewell. "I'm sorry," she told him, "but that doesn't solve the problem."

Toshiro knew that. He just didn't know what could.

* * *

The first thing Momo did when he entered the room was congratulate him.

She wasn't the only one, though – three-quarters of the male students already inside stood on their chairs the moment he passed through the door and began whooping like Neanderthals, and at least a dozen female voices engaged in a chorus of compliments (and one even professed her love for him) at once.

It was a lot to take in, but Toshiro didn't need any of it; he simply walked to his desk as though he had not heard, and the other students resumed their celebrations by discussing the highlights of the game – and Toshiro's performance – among themselves.

"Congratulations on your win," Momo said.

"Thanks." Toshiro was not so much in the mood to dwell on soccer any longer after his conversation with the manager.

Thankfully, Momo seemed to grasp this. She dropped the topic and instead busied herself with organizing the pile of worksheets that Kurotsuchi-sensei had spent the first five minutes of class handing back to the students who bothered to hand in work.

Toshiro turned his attention to his own heap of marked assignments, but he was so concerned about his newest problem that he couldn't quite bring himself to sort through it all. Instead, he tidied them into a respectable stack and stuffed them into the flap at the back of his binder.

Kurotsuchi-sensei made a showcase of sorts with the remaining assignments with no names, pinning them to the board at the front of the room. Without further ado, she silenced the students and announced, in a tone so desolate that one would imagine a person had died, "The final approaches. As we near the end of the school year, you will become preoccupied with graduation arrangements, but I must ask you to postpone the celebrations until after your examination is completed. It will be written in two parts and on two consecutive afternoons, which you will receive all period to write. Though I realize that we have just recently begun a new chapter, I am entrusting you all with the responsibility of self-teaching yourself this last unit – the societal effects of warfare. The exam will include questions about this, but they will be mostly short-answer and application-oriented, where you will be expected to supply facts and knowledge to support your position. Strong arguments usually make note of the total war effort, civilian casualties, and provide examples of polarization or unity as a cause or consequence of war."

A chorus of groans and synchronized eye-rolls elapsed as Kurotsuchi-sensei tapped the board in reminder of the nameless assignments and stalked back to her desk in the corner. Students all around began to sort unhappily through their books and sheets in preparation for independent study; however, chatter continued to ensue, in what the teacher must have considered a manageable volume, because she said nothing of it as she addressed her own pile of work.

Toshiro started to read the chapter of his textbook on the total war effort, but found he could not concentrate. His mind wandered not only to Kira, but to particularly nasty scenarios that centred around the possibility of disqualification from the playoffs, which meant a lost chance to participate in the nationals at all.

He didn't consider himself a very serious person. He was certainly very mature, and with this maturity he had taught himself that life was unpredictable and uncontrollable and some things would happen whether in his hands or out of them. If they couldn't play in the nationals, he would definitely dislike it, but in that outcome he would be helpless to change anything.

Toshiro closed his eyes tight, squeezing them shut as though trying to make the skin pinch a little painfully at the bridge of his nose. (It wouldn't.) Slowly, he let out a sigh and relaxed the muscles in his face, forced the tension from his shoulders, and leaned back in his chair. If there was nothing he could do about it right now, why bother worrying about it? He had schoolwork to focus on.

Even so, he felt somewhat glad when Momo provided a distraction: "Hitsugaya-kun, can I see that last quiz of ours?"

A little out of it, Toshiro blinked at her. "Eh?"

Patiently, she explained, "The last quiz we wrote – I was wondering if I could see yours. I'd just like to copy down the right answers."

Toshiro straightened, finally registering what she was requesting. He immediately began leafing through the section of his binder reserved for past tests and quizzes. "Uh, yeah, sure … but you know, they're not really _right _answers, they're just _good _answers. Most of the time on these tests you can get any answer right, as long as you have the examples to support them."

As he turned to her to give her the quiz sheet, he caught the movement of the corner of her mouth, down into the smallest of frowns. She, however, was staring at the quiz in his hand.

"Yeah, I know," she said in a small voice, as she took it from him. And here she forced a quick smile, or a sort of smile, where she merely pursed her lips. "I'm not very good at pulling examples off the top of my head, though."

Toshiro shrugged. He had once struggled with the same problem, but it seemed so long ago – sixth grade, perhaps? – that he couldn't even recall exactly how he had managed to overcome it. Practice, probably. Or pressure, more likely.

Suddenly it struck him that he was speaking to Momo. Not just any old classmate asking about examination tactics. He decided then that if he wanted answers, it was now or never. There were a dozen mysteries still hanging from last night's conversation, and the day after was likely the best time to discuss them with her.

"Hey Hinamori, tell me something," he said suddenly, resting his elbow on his desk and turning in his seat to face her completely. He would start with the mildest of questions. "Why do you always eat lunch by yourself?"

She didn't look at him immediately. Her lips parted, perhaps in surprise, and she looked as though she wanted to give the simplest answer possible. However, she seemed to rethink that idea, because she bit her lip and hesitated a while longer.

"Well," she said, very painfully slowly, "I don't have any friends." As an afterthought, she added, "—but you."

"_This_, too," Toshiro said, tapping the top of the desk with a single knuckle. "_Why_? Someone like you, I bet you have no problem making friends."

She didn't answer for a moment. Then: "You really believe that?"

"Yeah," he said confidently. "You're nice, you're easy to talk to. You're not ugly, you'd have no problem fitting in with the others. You're smart, and I bet a lot of students wouldn't mind working with you. I can go on, if you want."

"No, stop," she said, and though she probably should have been pleased to receive such compliments, she seemed very nervous.

"I thought we agreed we wouldn't ask questions," Momo frowned.

"We did," Toshiro conceded, realizing at once that he was playing the aggressor in this situation. "Feel free to shoot me down anytime you get uncomfortable."

"I _am _uncomfortable," she admitted, but she faced with him eyes that contradicted this, eyes that were resolute and determined to keep their secrets. "Why are you so bothered that I want to be friends with you?"

"Hey," Toshiro said carefully, sensing her defensiveness. He lifted his hands briefly off the desk in a mock show of innocence. "I'm not asking for a break-down of your motives for everything. I just want to know what I'm getting into, that's all."

He watched on tenterhooks as she digested this response, considered the fairness and rationality of it, then fixed him with a stern, slightly suspicious look from the side of her eyes. Suddenly, she straightened up and heaved a sigh all at once, so her shoulders rose and fell in a very confused manner.

"I guess I would doubt your sanity if you weren't curious," she relented, and then slowly turned herself on her seat so that she faced him completely as well. "Well, there are some things I suppose you deserve to know about me."

He could tell she was very uneasy, just from her hands in her lap, restless like pale butterflies.

"Firstly," she said, with the ghost of a wry smirk, "I was once popular."

This didn't surprise him.

"I've had friends before. Friendships are fun but these ones were difficult, too."

This wasn't news to him, either.

"Second," she continued, "I learned that I can't be trusted. I break things. I let things get broken. It's happened before and I'm scared of myself."

Something changed in Toshiro's posture just as something seemed to shift in his mind, like a gear or a switch, alerting him that this was something significant that he should remember. He still didn't quite fully get what she meant, but he filed the remark away in his head. Perhaps it would help him understand her better in the future.

"And lastly, I guess it could have been anyone. I'm sorry if I'm troubling you, but I can't explain it, I just felt comfortable enough around you to think that—"

"That's fine, that's enough," Toshiro said calmly, though it hadn't cleared all that much up for him. However, he didn't want to make her any more anxious than she already was. "I won't ask you to tell me anything again, alright? Not unless you need to. Come on, stop looking like you're going to wet the bed."

At this, Momo looked up so quickly, her face confused – eyes searching, puzzled, a little wary but considerably brighter, and her smile widening fast.

"I do not!" she protested, and even pressed two fingers to her right eye to see if tears were present. When Toshiro started snickering at this gesture, Momo heaved an indignant huff and mumbled something about hoping she wouldn't regret her choice.

All at once Toshiro realized two things. The first was that he felt indescribably comfortable around Momo, too. It was just a light atmosphere, an easy conversation, a natural peace. The second was that since talking to Momo, he had forgotten entirely about the issue with Kira. He remembered having been so reluctant to talk at the beginning of class, wanting to fold into himself and mourn the imminent loss of his chance to play in the nationals, but now he felt inexplicably better, lighter, and though the problem was not even an inch closer to being solved, it didn't seem so serious any longer.

Nevertheless, it all came down to the fact that he was glad, though he would be hard-pressed to admit it, that Momo had asked him to be her friend.

"Since you broke the rule and asked a question, I get to ask one too," Momo proposed all of a sudden, and was quick to add, "Just one; and you don't have to answer if you don't want to, either."

Toshiro was not as guarded as she, and consented immediately. "Go ahead, ask whatever you wanna know."

"Actually," Momo corrected herself, "it's not a question. It's a statement. I want to know your opinion on it."

"Fair," he agreed. "Fire."

"When you were talking about me, you made it sound like I have a lot of positive features that would make me a good friend."

He nodded, cautious, curious to see where she was headed.

"But then you wondered why I don't really let people approach me. And I thought that even though _you_ let _anyone_ approach you, you don't let anyone in, if you get what I mean." Pausing, she added, "Sorry, I'm not sure how to get this across without the corny phrasing."

Toshiro's mouth lifted in a dry smile at her apology, but it faded quickly. He was silent for a short while. He wasn't really thinking it over; there was nothing to think about. She'd hit the nail on the head.

He couldn't really explain why he did that, why he acted the way he did. He'd had more than his fair share of people opening up to _him, _spilling their secrets and confessing their sins and describing their feelings and venting about their problems, but never had he ever reciprocated. Not only did he imagine it would only be troublesome for them, a part of him was, (and this was quite a childish fear), quite reluctant to show that kind of vulnerability before other people, to show surrender in the face of his hardships, to show defeat in terms of not knowing what to do. It would be like admitting that there was something he couldn't do, it would be like admitting that he was ordinary, and if there was one thing he was intimidated by, it was the possibility of being nothing more than average.

Of course, he would never tell any of _this _to Momo, either. That also counted as a display of vulnerability.

"It's okay, I can see it's hard for you to talk about it," she said, understanding and unfazed. "Or rather, I think you don't know _how _to talk about it."

Toshiro raised an eyebrow. "You're a good people-reader, Hinamori," he commented. It was a compliment he had received many times over, but only now did he understand why it could be impressive and somewhat alarming when another person seemed to see right through you.

"You wanna hear what else I read from you?"

He laced his fingers into a loose fist on his desk and leaned back in his chair. "Do tell."

She crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap, assuming a position with which she was prepared to patiently listen. "That you were kind of down when you came into class. Wanna tell me what's bothering you?"

Staying slumped in his seat, Toshiro slowly lifted his eyes from his hands to Momo in a sidelong stare. He could feel that a corner of his mouth was frowning ever so slightly, and knew that she wouldn't miss it.

Still, he didn't want to tell Momo about his troubles. Not yet. He didn't want her to have to deal with his own pile of problems along with her own. Though outwardly she looked like the plainest girl with the most easy and simplest of lifestyles, nothing going on whatsoever, he could sense that somewhere within she was carrying a heavy burden.

She had proved useful as a friend, though, when she was able to cheer him up this period. She had listened to him and tried to understand him and didn't even ask him to do the same for her. Currently he considered her to be the most recent of silver linings in his life, the one stroke of _good _among the messes that kept coming back. She was, one might say, the opportunity for happiness, or perhaps the promise of it.

For now, he wanted to keep it that way.

"It was nothing. I'm fine now, I'm over it," he assured her, and it wasn't entirely a lie because he certainly felt a little less perturbed by it. While he knew this calm wouldn't last, considering the severity of the actual circumstances, he was glad to have whatever he could of it. "But thanks anyway, Bed-Wetter Momo."

"Oh, okay—wait, _hey!_"

* * *

It wasn't until he was on his way home that it struck Toshiro with all the force of a lightning bolt.

He had a _friend_.

Not just another follower, not another admirer, fan, disciple, acquaintance, team member, or anything like that. A genuine, true-to-life, bona-fide verified _friend_.

Perhaps it was because they had _confirmed _their friendship. And yes, it was a mighty juvenile thing, to require that one's relationships with others are all mutually confirmed, but Toshiro had never really graduated from childhood social customs because he had never known a true friendship beyond his childhood bonds. Come middle-school, everyone he considered "pals" degraded into strangers and faces in a crowd of people who irrationally worshipped him.

It was a peculiar feeling, that of knowing one had a friend. It was like realizing that something was _something_ for the first time, that your pet was a dog, that your breakfast was oatmeal, that the sticker your first-grade teacher rewarded you with on your very first assignment was a shooting star.

And that the girl who sat next to you in History was your friend.

And just like that, the world appeared to grow, right before his eyes. He wasn't alone anymore, he wasn't by himself. Now there was someone else. For example, that tree there – the one with the rotten apples hanging so low that any fellow who happened to be cycling beneath it was a very unlucky sucker indeed – it was something he might have pointed out to her if she'd been there to see it. Or the neighbour's cat, wailing so loudly that he'd seriously considered calling the police a total of seven times in the past; it was something he might have mentioned if they happened to come to the topic of their neighbourhoods.

Every detail he hadn't paid much attention to before, everything he had found fault in, were now two-sided coins, with one side that made it a bad situation and the other side that made it a good story she might be entertained by.

As he paused at the corner to wait to cross the street, Toshiro reflected on his thoughts. Now _he _was the one feeling incredibly corny. However, he was not the least bit ashamed of it.

For the first time in a long time, Toshiro grinned for no one to see.

* * *

**Sorry for the wait! **

**Not only did I suffer through a period where nothing I wrote seemed satisfactory, I also had work piling up by the day. But now I'm finally ready to present to you the latest instalment of _Anchor_ which I'm actually, thankfully, pleased with how it turned out, and how it's developing. **

**I love writing this story, I love all my readers and supporters, and I love receiving your feedback and encouragement.  
****hanks again for reading!**

Please leave your thoughts, comments, and any words for me in a **review**! (:


	8. Chapter 8

'_I'm falling apart  
__I'm barely breathing  
__With a broken heart  
__That's still bleeding.'_

* * *

When Momo was jostled from her sleep at an hour considered an abhorrent time for a student to be awake on a Saturday, it was by the unfamiliar sound of fists on her apartment door.

Since she'd come to this town, she hadn't had more than five visitors, and all of them had been total strangers. Today, however, this was not the case.

Her _parents _had come.

Immediately Momo was wide awake, overjoyed, and nearly suffocated by two pairs of arms whose warmth and contact she had missed greatly.

"_Momo_!" squealed her mother, over and over, but Momo didn't find it the least bit annoying. Instead, she was thinking that she couldn't ever hear this voice speak her name enough.

"How have you been doing?" asked her father, stepping back from their embrace and surveying her. "You look thinner. Do you have enough money for food? Whenever you need some, just give us a call, dear."

Momo could only nod. At this time she was feeling quite speechless, but still ecstatic, because this was the most wonderful surprise she could ever have received. She hadn't actually _seen _her parents in such a long time – not since the New Year, actually – and she had totally underestimated how precious filial bonds were.

Her mother calmed to a state of stroking Momo's hair while she and her husband discussed potential plans for their weekend in town.

"Oh, _first_," Momo interrupted, finding her voice at last (it was hoarse), "there's this breakfast spot downtown that you _need _to try before you leave."

"Sounds good," said her father. "We haven't eaten since four, which is when we left this morning."

"It sounds perfect," agreed her mother, already leading Momo back into her apartment. "I'll clean up your kitchen a bit while you go and get ready, Momo. After that, I want to hear all about your school and your friends."

Momo paused at the door to her bedroom, her hand on the doorframe. A small smile appeared as she realized she was actually quite glad she now had someone _real_ to tell her mother about.

* * *

Monday morning's arrival brought mixed feelings for Momo. On the one hand, she was sad to see her parents go, but on the other hand, she was almost relieved to be able to return to her new, independent life. Being in her parents' company actually brought back memories of the time she had lived with them in the old town, when she had had to hide her secrets and pains from them just to keep them from worrying.

Of course, now it was no longer the case, since she hadn't encountered any trouble in this town yet. She was able to face them with confidence and honestly profess that she was enjoying her time alone. But there was always that question hanging between them, ever since she'd left, asking her when she would return, wondering how she was coping with the past, and demanding to know why _exactly _she had gone.

Nevertheless she was thankful to have had spent the weekend in a state of reminiscence and bliss with her folks, whose company she would never refuse.

Now, though, it was time for her to fend for herself again.

Momo sailed through her first class in a sleepy state, not having slept very much over the weekend due to entertaining her mother and father. Between the first and second class, she dropped by a secluded bathroom by the art room emergency exit to wash her face and hopefully wake herself up.

A rather unpleasant scene greeted her when she pushed back the door.

A trio of girls occupied the area between the cubicles and the sinks. Momo recognized all of them as managers of the boys' soccer team, since she had seen them at the pep rally that had taken place at the beginning of soccer season.

One was short and blond with a stern, accusing look, and was flanked by a taller, broader brunette with a ponytail and lips that were curled into something vicious.

The third and last girl was just as tall, and much curvier, with thick orange hair and impassive eyes. She was the victim, Momo could see it immediately, but she swept right by as though she hadn't guessed what was going on, and took her place in front of the very last mirror at the end of the row.

Though she tried her hardest to ignore the girls, repeatedly telling herself that this was none of her business, Momo did not like what she was hearing.

"You think you can skip the game anytime you want, you little rat-face?"

"This was the only game—"

"You know how behind we were? You know that the other girl who was there was looking for you from everyone she knew? You know how much just _waiting _for you set us all back?"

"The only one who wouldn't let them call someone else until half-time was Hitsugaya."

"What, are you screwing him or something?"

"No, didn't you hear? _I _was told she was out with her pimp that night, that's why she couldn't come."

"Oh, so you're a _slut_ … get off your fucking horse already and do what you're supposed to do!"

"I'm not _screwing_ anyone—"

"Oh, so you don't deny that you were meeting that guy? The one with the creepy face? You're not just a disgusting whore, you're messed up in the head, too."

"Listen, just leave the soccer team already. We don't need call girls who would rather give booty than help out where they're told to."

Momo pushed dry hair back behind her ear with damp fingers, then stepped back from the mirror and looked at the girls from the corner of her eye. "I think you both need to rethink what you're doing."

The small blonde turned around, and for a moment Momo could see how stunned she looked, whether it was because she had forgotten Momo was even there or because she had not expected an outsider to dare to interfere.

Thankfully she didn't lash out at Momo. She didn't even look very menacing.

"Oh, don't get the wrong idea," she said simply. "We're just passing on a message from the assistant coach. The soccer team is a big commitment and we can't afford to keep someone who doesn't do their part."

"That's not what I meant," Momo said, sounding much clearer and more confident than she felt. She was glad her knees hadn't started trembling yet, though. "I don't think you know that other girl's side of the story."

"It's fine, we already know all we need to," interrupted the brunette. She looked a little more daunting than her blond partner-in-crime. "She just ignored the game so she could spend the night with her boyfriend from another school."

There was a silence as Momo waited for the girl to defend herself, explain herself, or justify herself, but nothing came.

"See? She doesn't even deny it," said the brunette.

"She doesn't deserve to be called those things and she doesn't need to leave the team," Momo said calmly. "I think you're overreacting."

"Whoa, whoa, _you _think we're _overreacting_?" clarified the blonde. "Um, are you implying that team commitments aren't serious? Or that girls should be allowed to just whore around and cause trouble for everyone else?"

"There isn't any need to bully her," Momo emphasized.

"I told you we're not bullying her!" insisted the blonde. "This doesn't even have anything to do with you."

The brunette, who had been leaning on her left leg, rose to her full height and apprehended Momo. "Look, we're telling you to stay out of this. This is her shit and she has to deal with it like a big girl. We get that you want to play Wonder Woman or whatever, but trust me, we don't want to hurt her. We're just teaching her a lesson."

Momo didn't know how to respond. On the one hand, she wanted to point out that they had already hurt her, by cornering and attacking and calling her such rude names. On the other hand, Momo _did not actually _know both sides of the story – and the victim wasn't even in denial – so she was afraid she might actually be interfering more than she would be helping.

Whose side should she take?

Momo knew whose side she would take, even as the thought passed over. She had once been a victim of equally harsh tides and being in such close proximity to this petty kind of cruelty once again was now firing up her nausea and anger.

Pinning the pair of girls with a look of disgust, Momo said bravely, "I think she's already learned her lesson, and that's why she isn't fighting you. Let her alone already."

"She isn't fighting because she knows we're right," the brunette said, smug and in agreement. "But her fucking problem is that she doesn't know when to quit. She sees this pimp twice a week and even though this is the first time it's affected a game, it's gotten in the way of our practices before."

"She's just a bother," emphasized the blonde. "Seriously, the lesson here probably isn't for her to be more disciplined, but for her to realize that it's not that hard to keep her legs closed."

Momo opened her mouth immediately, but a hand, gentle yet firm, clasped her shoulder from behind. Momo looked to see the pretty face of the victim girl, pale and exhausted and in stark contrast to her fiery hair.

The girl was shaking her head slowly. She was clearly telling Momo not to take this any further, but though her eyes were determined, they were also glassy. Momo didn't know what to trust – this girl or her gut.

Instead, she took a deep breath and scanned the scene around her. The two bullies were waiting for something else they could jump on and twist around to their advantage, and the girl behind Momo looked as though she just wanted to leave. Quickly assessing the attitudes of all present, Momo concluded that it was best if she just ended this as cleanly as she could.

She almost even regretted having gotten involved at all, but she was glad she had finally done something to make a difference – not only for someone else, but for herself as well. This was something the old Momo might have had the courage to do.

"Listen," Momo said, keeping her voice clear and calm, "I get that she did something wrong. And she even knows it. But this really isn't the place or the way to talk about it. I think that we should—"

"No, _you listen_, bitch," snapped the blonde. Momo flinched, having anticipated something like this; the exasperation had been growing on this girl's ugly face for a while now. "Neither of you girls want to fucking _listen_, do you? Holy crow, just get it already – this is for her own good. If she doesn't want to man up and take responsibility for what she did to us, and won't quit the team, then we just have to knock some sense into her."

"I'm _saying_ there's another way to go about this—" Momo tried to say.

"—oh, you mean this?" The blonde gave a bitter laugh and struck out, delivering a blow to the side of Momo's head that sent the other side right into the painful nook where one of the mirrors met the tiled wall. The victim girl behind Momo promptly released her grip on her shoulder, then recovered just as fast and reached out for her again. She brought Momo back to her feet and then turned to face the others.

"This is too far," she snarled, her voice low and not amused. "You want to hit me? Fine. Hit me. But you don't hit someone who was just trying to help me."

The blonde was visibly intimidated by the victim's sudden assertiveness, but she rolled her eyes and leaned forward to say, "Well, you know what? She was starting to piss me off with all her angelic bullshit. And don't _ask _us to hit you, Rangiku … we're not scared to go there."

The orange-haired girl – Rangiku – was taking deep breaths beside Momo, her one hand still gripping Momo's arm to steady her. Momo was hardly feeling any pain from her head, but a sensationless throb was present in the area above her left ear. It was almost numbing. She wasn't sure if it was bleeding, but if she confirmed that now, she would likely faint from the sight of it.

"You're starting to piss _me _off," Rangiku scoffed, and added menacingly, "and you don't _want _to see me pissed off."

"Oh, do your worst," spat the blonde, but before she had hardly finished her sentence, Rangiku's hand had already flown.

Momo lurched forward, stumbling: "Don't—!" but it had already hit. The smack of Rangiku's palm against the blonde's cheek was almost deafening to Momo, who for the last three minutes had only been able to hear the unsettling pulsating under her head wound.

Immediately Momo felt dizzy, and clutched her head with her hand, in part to steady herself and in part to mourn the total loss of control in this situation. The girls hardly seemed to notice her disappointment, because the brunette had lashed out at Rangiku in turn just as reflexively as Rangiku had reacted to the blonde's invitation.

The girls left almost instantly, the blonde nursing her cheek and sending Rangiku and Momo a cutting glare right before the bathroom door swung shut behind her. Their high-pitched voices could be heard fading down the corridor as they discussed what had just happened with much huffing and indignity.

"Are you okay?" Momo asked Rangiku, placing her hand firmly on the edge of one of the sinks to help herself stand. The larger girl was standing with her back against a bathroom stall, taking breaths as big as sighs and gently running her fingertips over the fresh scratches along her jawline.

"This doesn't hurt at all," she assured Momo, then blinked up, eyes wide. "What about you? My injury looks like nothing compared to _that._"

Hurriedly she straightened and crossed to the sink, running water under a wad of paper towels and urgently pressing the cold, wet mass to the side of Momo's head. The chill made her shudder, once, but the effect of the pressure was remarkably soothing.

"I've got it," Momo said, taking the paper from Rangiku and shooing the girl away with her hand. "Go to class, Rangiku-san. I'll probably head to the infirmary."

Rangiku bit her lip, then slid a cell phone out of her pocket and checked the time. "This period is nearly over," she said dismissively. "It's lunch next. Come on, I'll come with you to the infirmary. I should get these scratches checked, too, so—"

The two girls walked around three corners in silence before Momo finally mustered the brashness to ask aloud: "So what _did _you do to make them so mad, really?"

Rangiku, instead of biting her lip and withdrawing as Momo expected her to, reacted rather fiercely; she snorted a very unladylike laugh. "Oh, that? It was nothing. I skipped the first half of the game and they were all worked up about it."

But she quieted to a morose expression and then sighed, adding, "I understand, though, why they're not happy. I've been causing them trouble since my first week as a manager. I've always been skipping out here and there, coming late, not showing up, and I know how hard it is when someone who's scheduled to be there suddenly isn't. And it does matter a lot more in a game than in a practice."

Momo did not quite know how to proceed without sounding rude, so she threw caution to the wind and asked, "Why are you even a manager?"

Rangiku laughed again, though this time with much more warmth. "I didn't _ask _to be! I actually get some Phys. Ed. credits for doing this. It also looks pretty good, you know, on a resume or college application – extracurricular and volunteer stuff, right."

Momo nodded.

"Not that I'm really doing it well, though," Rangiku grinned. As she slid the infirmary door open, she turned to look at Momo and paused before entering the room. "But hey, thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt back there. I _was _in the wrong and I knew it and you probably knew it but what you did was really nice of you. I don't know why you took my side when you had no reason to, but thanks anyway."

Momo immediately melted and gave Rangiku a lopsided, sympathetic smile. "I'd rather make friends and not enemies," she said dismissively. "And those other girls didn't sound like they'd make very good friends."

Before Rangiku could respond, the school nurse bustled in through the curtain dividing the waiting area and the actual sickroom. She immediately pinned Rangiku with an exasperated look and groaned, "Some _terrible _accident _again_, Matsumoto?"

Rangiku bestowed upon the familiar woman an angelically apologetic smile. "Something more righteous this time, ma'am – we got caught in a tussle involving bullies."

Momo noticed two things out of the ordinary at once: firstly, that the nurse had implied that Rangiku frequented the infirmary, using excuses such as unfortunate accidents to explain her injuries, and secondly that Rangiku failed to mention that it was she and Momo who had been the _victims _of the tussle involving bullies.

What was she hiding, exactly?

"And who's this?" The nurse's face softened as she turned to greet Momo, and instantly her hand flew to the side of Momo's head where blood was visibly caking at the hairline by her ear. "Oh, dear."

"This is my new friend," Rangiku said brightly, gesturing for Momo to introduce herself.

"Momo Hinamori," said Momo, slowly and shyly but somehow a little proudly. Standing beside her newfound friend, head bleeding, lips stretched wide, she felt closer to her old, confident self than she had in a long time.

* * *

"So I've made a new friend."

It certainly caught his attention, as she had expected. He turned to look at her.

"Yeah? How?"

Momo smiled, a little wryly. "Through a series of unfortunate events." She rotated her head as far back as she could, as if looking over her shoulder, to let him see the bandaged mess by her hairline.

Toshiro was silent for a moment, then cursed in good humour and grimaced. "Looks rough," he said lightly, though his eyes were slightly more concerned than his tone was letting on. "What happened?"

"There was an argument between some girls in the washroom," Momo said, "and it turns out that 'talking things out' doesn't work for some people."

Toshiro nodded, understanding, but still eyed her bandage with apprehension. "So who ended up dealing _that _one?" He inclined his head to indicate Momo's head wound.

She glanced at him sidelong before she decided to evade it. He was a noble character, Hitsugaya was, and she knew without a doubt that he would personally address the guilty girl in this case, for her sake. His consideration pleased her but at the same time made her nervous. She appreciated the gesture but did not want any more trouble to arise around her.

"A girl I didn't know from anywhere," she said vaguely. "Actually, I don't know any of them, except now I know Rangiku-san."

From the corner of her eye, she watched his eyebrow lift. "You mean Matsumoto?"

"Yes, her. She said she's one of your team's managers."

"She is." Toshiro clenched his jaw and leaned back in his seat. "She's not been herself lately, though. It's actually beginning to worry me."

So Toshiro had noticed that something was wrong with Rangiku. It was disgusting, really, how Momo was feeling _envious _of Rangiku for having someone to actually notice her troubles, because it had been so long since anyone had listened to her own. Stupid, she told herself. This was no time to think like that. She had to sympathize for Rangiku, and help her – not _envy _her.

"I think she'll come together," Momo said optimistically. She didn't want to divulge too much about the accusations made around Rangiku, just in case Toshiro hadn't heard any of it yet. It wouldn't do to go about touting her newest friend as a possible 'slut'. "She seems like a tough girl."

"Toughest of them all," Toshiro agreed, and he seemed to relax as he did so. Momo felt a tiny sense of pride in knowing she had been able to calm him in some way. Perhaps it meant she was finding her way under his guard at last.

* * *

It seemed like Rangiku wasn't the only new face to be met that day.

As Momo swung her locker door shut and snapped the lock, ready to retire from school for the day, she found her path blocked by a skinny fellow with butter-blond hair (the longest she'd seen on a _boy_) and morose eyes.

"Afternoon," he said casually, as though he weren't cornering her in any way. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Momo hesitated. She thought his appearance looked familiar, but couldn't place it. She ended up concluding that she had probably never encountered him before. She thought she would remember these strange, droopy eyes.

There was also something unsettling about his voice. It was straightforward and honest, accompanied by an unassuming and easy tone, but she couldn't quite bring herself to trust it.

"Do I know you?" she asked bluntly, though due to her uneasiness, it emerged as an anxious question rather than an assertive demand.

"I suppose not," he said, oddly courteous, and extended a hand. He didn't seem impatient with her in the least. "My name is Izuru Kira. Call me whatever you like for now. I just need a few moments before you leave."

Momo shook his hand immediately, but again paused before she responded. "Right, well, I've got to catch the train home, so if you're headed the same way I don't see why not."

Kira straightened and checked his watch, smooth as ever. He obviously was _not _headed the same way, because he seemed to mull over his options before he told her, "Alright, I'll walk you there then. I've got some time to kill."

Though not the answer she was quite hoping to receive, Momo nodded as if this pleased her and allowed him to keep pace with her. He didn't say a single word until the both of them had exited the building and were on the path to the main road.

"So. You're Momo, right?"

Slightly taken aback by his forwardness, Momo fell out of step and blinked. _Whoa_. "Please don't call me Momo," she said, as politely as she could. "I feel like I don't really know you at all."

"Right. Sorry. Uh, Hinamori-kun, then?"

Momo shrugged and nodded. A little peculiar to hear, but preferable nonetheless. "How do you know my name?"

"Rangiku Matsumoto," Kira said. "You met her earlier today, am I right?"

Momo nodded. Had Rangiku told him specifically about _her_, or had she simply been revealing details of the scuffle with the bullies? It was unnerving to consider that she had been discussed among total strangers.

"I just wanted to ask you not to say anything about that to anyone," Kira said slowly. His tone had lost that easiness, and his words were spoken like a warning. A part of Momo was even convinced she was listening to a plea of sorts. "The whole issue with the other girls and Rangiku and not coming for practices and games and whatnot … if you don't mind, could you keep it to yourself?"

Momo nodded, again wordlessly. She hadn't really been intending to tell anyone anyhow.

"This includes Hitsugaya, you know."

At once she raised her head, eyes narrowed and sharp and her expression confused. "What is that supposed to mean?" she demanded, and this time her words successfully took on a hard edge. Then she paused, refusing to walk a step further, and spread her arms wide. "Okay, how much do you _know _about me? You're scaring me. I don't know who you are, I don't know why you're talking to me."

Kira swiveled back to face her, instantaneous and desperate. "Please, Hinamori-kun, just – just bear with me, okay? I know you don't know anything about me. I know I'm probably scaring you. It's just really important that all this funny business gets kept from our captain right now. And you know why I'm talking to you, it's because you were there and you saw it, you watched Rangiku get called out for her shit, and it's also because you're Hitsugaya's friend—"

"—and how do you know _that_?" Momo all but screamed. She was getting exasperated, tired of having to struggle to understand why she was suddenly caught up in a mess that wasn't hers to begin with. She was almost certain that nobody would think of put her together with Hitsugaya save for the few kids in their AP History class, where they were still nothing more than seat partners.

Kira reached forward and took hold of her wrists. He looked straight into her eyes, her frantic eyes, and his were frantic too, in their own way, but determined. He had probably meant to calm her, control her, but the contact was only terrifying her.

"Look," Kira said, "I don't know if this is going to change anything, but I _know _about you. I know more about you than Hitsugaya does. There's no reason to be scared of me."

Momo looked around her in exasperation and turned her face to the sky. "Why don't you _understand_," she cried, "that that's _why _I'm scared of you!" She took a step forward and closed the gap between them, staring hard into those unperturbed eyes. "Tell me," she said, "what you think you 'know' about me."

"All he knows is everythin' I told him," said a voice that came from directly behind her. "So don't be mad at him, okay, Hinamori-chan? 'Tain't his fault, now."

Spoken thin and dry, the words were slick and slimy. She knew that voice. She would know it anywhere, without the accent, without the aura, without the figure that was making its way around her frozen frame to join the blonde boy she was facing.

Gin Ichimaru.

"No," she said, her voice so hoarse it was barely a whisper. "You're not here, you can't be here. Go away. Go away, go away, _no_!"

She looked from Gin to Kira. She had so many questions, but she didn't want the answers. Not any of them.

Kira actually looked like he pitied her now. Gin looked amused, just faintly, the way he always did.

"I ain't here to stay, Hinamori-chan," he said, as if he were reassuring her. "But there's somethin' you should know, yeah."

Momo tried her hardest to glare at him, but her eyes were so wide in disbelief and fear that she couldn't bring them to do much else but stare. She breathed: "What's that?"

Kira was beginning to look confused, unable to follow the connection between Gin and Momo. His gaze flickered back and forth between one and the other, though neither faces were experiencing much change at all.

Then a glint from Gin, the whites of his teeth as he pulled back one side of his mouth to give that awful crooked grin, tilting his head so that the silver of his hair gave a flash in a sunbeam.

"He's coming for you."  
Momo didn't even take the time to think before she reacted. "Liar," she spat, voice low, then again, louder: "_Liar_!"

Kira looked utterly bewildered, totally lost, but Momo hardly gave a thought to him as she clenched her fists tightly around the strap of her bag and ran forward, pushing past the pair of males, right in between the two. It was almost as though Gin had seen her coming, and he stepped ever so slightly to the side; Kira was shoved back with almost all of Momo's force, and staggered into the barb-wire fence directly behind him.

"Whoa – hey, Hinamori! I'll make it up to you! Let's talk more tomorrow, alright?"  
Momo pretended she hadn't heard him. She just kept on running.

She was running down a street she'd never even seen before, beneath a canopy of large shaded trees and along a pattern of neutrally-coloured townhomes. When she managed to find her way out of the residential area and back to the main road, she stumbled and returned herself onto the path to the train station, where she was both glad and surprised to see that the train was just arriving.

Momo's legs felt as though they might give out any moment, but they couldn't, not just yet, not when there was any chance that Kira or Gin – or maybe even _he _– was behind her. But she knew that wasn't true. He couldn't be here. There was just no way. Gin lied all the time. This was just another stupid lie.

So she kept on, right up to the platform, crossing it to where the train doors were open and waiting. But then a voice, from out of nowhere:

"Hey, Hinamori—"

It was Toshiro, a blur of white and blue as she flew by, his voice warm and familiar and the very brief contact as her shoulder knocked into his oddly comforting. His arm reached out and grabbed her, pulling her back, steadying her.

"Wait, what's—"

But then _that_. Those eyes. They were a beautiful colour, and what made them even more beautiful was the look of concern in them, the look that promised her he could help her, the eyes that wanted to give her their attention, the kind of feeling that made her feel safe and saved and special.

But she had seen these eyes once before, and they wouldn't fool her again. She trusted Toshiro, she trusted him completely, but right now, she just couldn't bring herself to meet those eyes.

She just wanted to get home. She just needed to be alone, and hide away, and lock her door and not think about anything for a long while. So she pushed past him, not looking back and not apologizing, not even as she tripped onto the train and let herself get lost in the sea of strangers.

She chanced a glance out of the window between the heads of two children as the doors slid shut and the train whistled. There was Toshiro on the platform, still rooted to the spot, looking for her along the train cars, searching.

With those eyes.

It hurt her to see those eyes on someone as innocent and well-meaning as him. She knew he wasn't like Aizen. Those eyes meant something else on Toshiro. And she wanted to answer them, but right now she didn't know anything. She felt misplaced, lost, confused, not ready.

And she'd come to him once she was, she promised it to him now, silently; she promised it to herself.

She only hoped he would still be waiting.

* * *

**From here on out, you can expect faster updates. Sorry for the wait with this chapter, but I really wanted to get it right. There were some events I had considered adding, but it was already longer than the previous ones so I pushed those back into the later installments and my plan was very slightly rearranged. That caused me some delay but it's here now, so I hope you enjoyed reading it.**

**And thanks for all who have read, favorited, followed and reviewed **_Anchor _**up til now. I really appreciate all of your support and feedback and I cannot thank you enough. Eight chapters and still going strong. I really enjoy writing this story and I can only hope all of you enjoy reading it even half as much. **

**So, now that 8's here, please leave me your comments, thoughts, and reviews. Always a pleasure!**


	9. Chapter 9

'_You know I'd fall apart without you  
__I don't know how you do what you do  
_'_cause everything that don't make sense without you  
__Makes sense when I'm with you.'_

* * *

Toshiro was at a loss for what to do.

It was too late to chase her onto the train. It was impossible to track down her phone number; she was such a phantom classmate that no one would know. Then again, he thought, she might just need some time to herself. He would wait until tomorrow to see what had went wrong.

But then he came upon a curious sight – two individuals, both tall and male, making their way toward the platform. Toshiro knew one of the heads from afar, recognizing the long pale hair and the lean frame: Izuru Kira, a member of the soccer team. His companion, however, was someone Toshiro had never before seen, lanky and silver-haired and wearing a somehow disturbing smirk.

Toshiro headed in their direction, seizing this chance to question Kira about his alleged gang activity and straighten out the deal once and for all. However, he was sidetracked from his intentions when the silver-haired fellow spoke up first.

"If it ain't the devil," he said mysteriously, beaming in a way that Toshiro did not particularly find welcoming. "Ay me, did Hinamori-chan already go home? Seems like we missed 'er."

At the mention of her name, Toshiro's brow lifted and he looked sharply at Kira. "What?"

Kira avoided Toshiro's eyes but stood his ground. "Sorry, I think we might've got off the wrong foot with your friend."

Toshiro had multiple questions he wanted to ask. How did Kira know that he and Momo were friends? Why had Kira been talking to her? Who was the silver-haired fellow? What relationship did _he _have with her?

Instead, he narrowed his eyes and sighed. "What did you do to her?"

"Nothing," Kira said promptly, eyes widening as though afraid Toshiro had adopted an illicit thought. "Nothing at all. We just exchanged a few words, I asked for a favour, and then Gin came and Hinamori-kun became very flustered and left."

"Gin," Toshiro repeated, his stare flicking from Kira to the stranger. "This one?"

Kira nodded and stepped slightly to the side to gesture at Gin. "This is Gin Ichimaru," he said, very formal.

Toshiro looked reluctantly at the extended hand that was waiting for his acceptance. Though he didn't quite want to take it, he leaned forward and did anyway, saying stiffly: "Toshiro Hitsugaya."

"He's just visiting from out of town," Kira explained.

Toshiro said nothing. He was surveying his newest acquaintance, trying to read past that slimy smile and flesh out the character underneath. What his interpreations were formulating in his head were not pleasant.

He was liking this fellow less and less as the seconds ticked by.

"Sorry to in'errupt the silence an' all," said Gin, his voice heavily accented and mocking, "but ya said I could see Rangiku, ain't that right?"

Kira jumped to attention, clearly having forgotten. "Right, uh, we can probably still catch her around the school. She's usually in some form of detention or other." Turning to Toshiro, he gave a brief wave – more of a salute, actually – and said, "We'll be going now, but again, we're sorry for any trouble we caused your friend. See you tomorrow morning at practice, Captain."

Toshiro inclined his head without raising a single hand in goodbye as the pair turned and headed the direction they had come. He kept his gaze on the shrinking figures, oddly discomforted, until they had turned the corner and disappeared from view.

Now he had even more questions than before Momo had taken him by surprise, and he had no idea where to start looking for answers.

* * *

Toshiro, unable to get it off of his mind all morning, decided that he wouldn't wait until History to see Momo. He searched for her at lunch, gladly giving up another meal spent around a table of rambunctious soccer players, and found her easily in the library at the desk beneath the clock.

"Ready or not, here I am," he said bluntly, dropping into the chair across from her.

Momo blinked up at him, not very surprised to see him. She almost looked tired – not of _him_, simply too tired to protest. "Hello," she said, closing her novel and setting it aside. On the table in front of her, there were half-eaten portions of each of vanilla pudding, a cinnamon roll, and a container of sliced peaches glazed in something that resembled syrup or honey.

"That's some lunch," he observed, amused. "Sweet tooth, eh?"

"You bet," she said. "How was your morning?"

"Unfocused," Toshiro said truthfully. He stared directly at her, stern and deliberate. "Come on. What was up with you the other day?"

Momo shrugged and sighed, probably having expected this interrogation. "It wasn't anything at all. I just heard something I didn't want to hear and I overreacted. Sorry for running from you like that, by the way. I wasn't thinking. Please don't think I hate you or anything."

Toshiro waved a hand dismissively. "All good," he promised. "Listen, if it isn't a life-or-death secret, then can you please tell me what's going on with you?"

She swallowed visibly, then closed her eyes and shook her head. "Nothing's going on right now," she said. She didn't appear to be lying. "It's just my stupid incapability to move on from something that I should've forgotten a long time ago."

Toshiro let out a breath. There was more to it, he was sure, but she was summarizing it all up in obscure terms so that she wouldn't be lying to him. "Hinamori," he said, and once she heard him speak her name she glanced up at him, eyes curious. "It kills me," he said quietly, "not to know what's getting at you. You're like, my first true friend, and I'm not allowed to do anything for you?" To emphasize his point, Toshiro leaned forward and opened his arms on the table in disbelief. "This isn't the kind of friendship I thought we were supposed to have."

He kept his eyes on her, sharp and hard, and when she said nothing, he let his hands fall limply onto the wooden tabletop.

Then she did something that took him by surprise: she reached forward and took both of his hands in hers, but her eyes were trained on the empty space in between the two of them.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but the things I don't tell you are the things I don't want you to know. They're the things _I _don't even want to know. I just want to get over it and I don't think bringing it up all the time is going to help."

Toshiro thought he somewhat understood, so he nodded in surrender. "Fine," he told her. "Then what _can_ I do?"

Momo looked up at him at last, the slightest of smiles on her lips. She looked both relieved and grateful. "Just stay," she said simply, glancing at the clock. "Keep me company. Being around you relaxes me."

_Funny_, thought Toshiro. _That's what you do for me, too._

She slid her hands off of his and returned to her normal sitting position, and at once he realized that her touch had been very warm. He left his hands sprawled out on the tabletop for a few moments longer before withdrawing them to his lap.

"Hard to believe I'm spending lunch with the coolest kid in the school," Momo joked absently as she tucked her neglected novel into a pocket of her bag.

Toshiro glanced swiftly around. It didn't seem like anyone in the library had recognized him yet. Much of the desks were even empty; the only other occupants were either deep in study or private conversations.

He decided to humour her. "So how's it feel?"

Though her head was still half-ducked down, rummaging through the contents of her bag, he could see her grin. "Quite normal, actually," she told him. "You may think you're all that, Toshiro Hitsugaya, but you're nothing special."

"Wha—"

Then she laughed, and he couldn't help but grin. He was quickly learning that Momo had a playful side.

"Hey Hinamori," he said suddenly, as her mirth faded, "our games start tomorrow. Are you going to come?"

Momo's smile disappeared, replaced by wide eyes and puzzlement. "Isn't the game during the daytime?" she asked. "During classes?"

"There's one," he admitted, "but then we come back to play a home game in the evening. At the field on the way to the train station. You know which one."

She nodded, then brightened and nodded again, more vigorously. "Yeah, I'll be there," she promised. "I like watching you play."

Something about that comment made something inside of Toshiro twitch. He prayed that it wouldn't end up making him nervous in his next performance in front of her.

"Hitsugaya?" came a tinkling voice from a short distance away. It was followed by the sound of soft footfalls that manifested in the appearance of a short, pretty girl wearing a sparkly headband and numerous rhinestone bracelets. "It really _is _you! What are you doing in the _library_?"

Toshiro didn't quite remember her name – he didn't believe he'd actually ever heard it, to be honest – but he recognized the girl and her voice. She was one of the devout supporters of the soccer team, attending every game and most practices for her own entertainment, and occasionally joining the team on their outings to restaurants and fast-food joints afterward. He also saw her at the few team parties that were held every season, and she and her friends often badgered him to hang out.

Toshiro replied in a dull voice, "Well, I have the highest grade-point average in the whole school, so I can do whatever I want." He was being deliberately cold, knowing that with her personality, the girl wouldn't be very strongly offended; he was also teasing Momo for her previous remark about thinking he was "all that".

She certainly noticed, because across the table, she appeared to be suppressing a smile.

The girl shrugged, unperturbed, and beamed at Toshiro. "Well, yeah, whatever. You're always the best. You wanna come over to where the other girls are? We're talking about tomorrow's games."

She gestured over to the east wing of the library, where a table packed full of similarly gaudy girls were huddled together in a gossip-fest that seemed both passionate and melodramatic. Toshiro inwardly shuddered.

"No," he said frankly.

She frowned, but shrugged again and turned to leave. "Right, then, good luck at the game tomorrow! We'll be cheering for you. Maybe we can all do something after, right?"

He didn't answer, but he inclined his head in farewell as she waved and walked away.

Once she had gone, Momo let out the smile she had been holding back.

"What's so amusing?" Toshiro asked.

Her brown eyes, large and sweet and innocent, shone above her coy smile as she lifted her shoulders in a slow shrug. "I just think your awkwardness is funny, that's all."

"What awkwardness?" he demanded. "I'm not awkward."

Her smile grew, all mischief now. "You are. That's why I was joking earlier; you could never think you're all that. Just admit it: you were uncomfortable talking to her, weren't you?"

Toshiro blinked. He ran through his very short-lived conversation with the girl from seconds before and took a long inhale of air. "Don't know how you do it," he said suddenly. He thought he'd epitomized aloofness just then. How Momo could possibly have had seen right through him was incomprehensible.

"I'm right, aren't I?"

He didn't confirm it. Instead, he explained, "I just don't know how to act when someone like that is obviously interested in me and I'm just _not_. It's _weird_. I don't like it."

Momo nodded sympathetically and began to count the stray hairs that had fallen out of the knot at the back of her head. "It's okay," she said, slowly but clearly. "It's okay not to like someone back. You have no obligation to. And, there's no good reason to go against your heart. At least _I _don't think so."

He liked listening to Momo's advice. It was easy, telling her his problems, his feelings, and hearing her voice respond, giving the words that always made him feel silly for having worried or cared so much, but never blaming him, never once making him feel wrong or at fault.

"But did you _see _how she _didn't _see me?" Momo asked, with a sudden giggle. "It was like I was invisible!"

Toshiro smirked. "You had your head kind of down," he explained, "and you were holding your book. Maybe you just, like, blended into the bookshelf or something."

Momo laughed out loud.

Watching her, listening to her laugh, studying her dimples and her cheeks, Toshiro thought about how much of a waste it was, this personality, this extraordinary character whose brightness was being restrained and concealed and censored. She was clever, and she was witty, and she was fun and kind and soothing, and when he thought about it some more, he almost pitied her, for having part of it out of reach.

Because he reckoned that the other part _was _in her reach, and that she tapped in on it once in a while, and those times were when he was with her. She would open up, and she would shine, and she would be several shades more different than the anxious shell of a thing she'd been when they first met.

In these moments, she was probably tapping into her old self. He imagined that the girl he mostly spent his time with was the girl who she had once been, before it had all come apart for her.

If he could, he would have her this way all the time. If he somehow could, he wouldn't let her fall back into her spells of fear and unease, and if he could, he would restore every facet of Momo Hinamori and build her back up again.

After all, she didn't just need friendship and fun and affection.

She _deserved _it.

* * *

"What do you think you're doing?"

Toshiro leaned against the bathroom wall, arms crossed, face unimpressed.

The members of the soccer team were lounging around within, sipping from water bottles and chatting about trivial matters.

"This is embarrassing. The other team is already warming up." Toshiro glared at the silent males sitting on the ground, which he now towered over.

There was a low murmur of apologies, accompanied by the sound of shuffling feet as the players moved past him.

Toshiro followed them out onto the field, from where he had just came. The other team had already acquired a soccer ball and were taking practice shots on an empty net in turn. Toshiro gestured for his players to occupy the far end of the field in their practice and crossed to the sidelines, where he prepared to criticize their technique as meticulously as he could.

He glanced at the giant clock above the stadium. It was two minutes to six o'clock, when the doors would open for the spectators to fill the stands. It was their evening game against a new team. The team they had played earlier that afternoon had been an easy win, sorely overestimated.

_This _team would prove to be more of a challenge. Toshiro had studied the data and concluded that they had quite a reputation for their impressive defense. Thankfully, Toshiro's team boasted an aggressive _offense_ – particularly in thanks to characters such as Renji, Ikkaku, Kira and Ichigo – and had a chance at derailing the opponent.

"Whoooo!" hollered Renji, loud enough to snap Toshiro out of his thoughts. The crimson-haired kid was running away from the goal, where he had just sent the ball flying past the stand-in goalie, and was now greeting the incoming crowd like the arrogant fellow he was.

It became impossible to get points across to the players from the sidelines once the fans had moved in; the noise of the families and children and screaming girls was absolutely deafening, and the game hadn't even begun. Toshiro stepped back from the side of the field and turned to look up around at the stands.

He was looking for one face in particular – Momo's. As far as he could tell, she hadn't come in yet.

"Hitsugaya!" came a chorus of female voices from not too far away. Toshiro turned in their direction, and immediately regretted it as a blinding flash erupted in his vision. "Smile!"

Blinking away the blur of marred colours and flashing lights that now swam all over his view, Toshiro shook his head irritably and continued to scan the crowd of people. As he walked down the length of the stands, he received countless waves and whistles, none of which he responded to.

Just as he reached the vendor, who was trying to explain to a trio of tipsy college students that there was no liquor available, Toshiro was ambushed from behind by an unfamiliar arm that draped itself around his neck.

"Wh – oh, Kurosaki."

"Geez, Toshiro, I told you not to call me that!" Karin huffed. She took a bite out of something in her hand and added, "It's what you call my brother, so it's weird for me."

"I told _you _not to call me Toshiro," he reminded her.

She ignored this and slid her arm off of his shoulders so that she could enjoy her snack with both hands.

He then noticed what she was eating. It was a salted pretzel protruding from a napkin wrapper, piping-hot from the vendor's cart.

He thought of Momo. She would probably have wanted the cinnamon-sugar pretzel, or maybe the ice-cream sandwich.

Where _was _she?

As Karin chattered on about something he deemed wholly insignificant, he followed her lead around the court, barely listening and keeping his eyes peeled for black hair, brown eyes, turquoise ribbons. He wasn't having much luck.

"Hey. _Hey_. Earth to Toshiro."  
Toshiro stopped walking and blinked. The sea of faces was making him dizzy. He brought his gaze back down to Karin, who didn't even really look like Karin to him anymore. Perhaps it was time he gave the crowd-searching a rest.

"What? Sorry," he muttered, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose briefly. _Focus_, he told himself. _The game starts soon.  
_ Karin sighed. "You're so out of it, Toshiro. Who are you looking for, anyway?"

He opened his eyes, feeling rather weary, and said vaguely, "Just a friend."

Her interest was instantly piqued. "Who is it?" she asked. "Do I know him? Here, I'll help you find whoever it is; what does he look like?"

Toshiro shook his head. "Don't bother," he advised. "I've already looked."

She pursed her lips sadly. "No-show?"

"Running late?" Toshiro suggested, more for himself than to her. "Don't know. Game's starting soon, though, I'd better get back to the bench."

Karin nodded in agreement. But before Toshiro could turn away from her, Karin took his upper arm and held him back, then placed her hand on the top of his head.

It was different from the times she had ruffled his hair and teased him about being an elementary-school kid. It was different because it wasn't rough, or boyish, or Karin – it was soft and gentle and a little awkward.

"Good luck," she said warmly.

Toshiro moved his head upward, pretending to glance at the clock but truthfully trying to shake off her touch. He nodded quickly and excused himself to the bench, where his coach and the rest of his team were exchanging opinions on the opponents.

"—fourteen, he's a pussy," said Ichigo nonchalantly, taking a swig from his water bottle and wiping his lips with his wrist. "Did you see the way he ran away from the ball when he was standing in for goalie?"

"Maybe he was putting on an act," speculated the coach. "It's been done before, you know. Mind games. Shouldn't put it past anyone, big tourney like this."

"Doubt it," said Ikkaku, from where he sat cross-legged in the grass. "You were talking to the ref, Coach, so you didn't see, but he was the biggest doofus I've ever seen in my life. And that's _after _I've seen Red and Orange here." He indicated Ichigo and Renji, both of whom promptly served him blows to either side of his head.

"Watch it," the coach said sternly, but he looked to be part-laughing.

Toshiro agreed with the coach: "We have to think of our first win as a fluke," he advised. "It's no good to get ahead of ourselves this early in the tournament. We can lose at any moment. This is a strong team and their track record's just as good as their rep, I've seen it. They've won about twice as many games as this morning's team had, and they don't do that by recruiting pussies and doofuses."

Ichigo and Ikkaku shut up about number fourteen, but the silence was short-lived; the buzzer for the game to begin sounded after several minutes and the handful of starting players were called to the field.

Before the game begun, Toshiro took one last quick glance around the stands.

Still no Momo.

* * *

As soon as the handshakes between members of each team were exchanged at the end of the game, the field began to fill with spectators bleeding down from the stands.

Surrounded by sympathetic families and fans was the opposing team, and congratulated by all the others was Toshiro's team. They had won.

He didn't know how they had pulled it off – with a streak of fouls in the first half, they hadn't had much going for them. But they'd turned it around – Hitsugaya scoring the first goal, Ikkaku the second, and Ichigo the third. They'd barely managed to beat the others, 3-2, and the deciding goal had been made with sixteen seconds on the clock. It was truly a miracle.

As he waded through the ocean of strangers and classmates, Toshiro was clapped on the back by many, constantly whistled at, squealed at, hollered at. He would be lying, though, if he said he hated this attention. Far from giving him a headache, as loud noises tended to, this was feeding his adrenaline.

He was feeling on top of the world.

He passed by the Kurosaki family, the twins and their father looking extremely proud of Ichigo for his winning shot. He wandered a few feet away from them before a hand took hold of his shoulder and gently pulled him around.

"Congratulations!" Despite their proximity, Momo was forced to shout over the din around them.

Toshiro was still breathing heavily. His eyes were wide, alert, awake. "Thanks," he told her, glad to see her face. "Thought you weren't coming for a bit there."

Momo frowned. "I was here the whole time."

"No you weren't," he said confidently. "I didn't see you in the stands when the game started."

"You must've missed me."

Toshiro raised an eyebrow. She was underestimating him. "I was only looking for _you_. I wouldn't miss you."

He looked right at her, and her frown flipped into a sheepish smile. The faintest colour appeared in her face, but whether she was flushing or being affected by the sweat and humidity all around he couldn't say for certain.

"Sorry," Momo said, "I just missed the five-forty train, is all." Glancing at him, her smile became bolder. "I would never go back on a promise I made to you."

"Yeah," Toshiro nodded, wiping sweat from the side of his neck with the back of his hand. "That's what I figured."

Grinning, Momo explained that she would be heading out in order to ensure that she did not miss her train ride home, and praised his performance before she left.

As he waved her off, Toshiro caught the eye of Karin Kurosaki. She was no longer buzzing around her brother, like her sister and father, but was staring over at him. When they locked gazes, she crossed the short distance between them and greeted him with a high-five.

"Great game," she said, somewhat distracted. "Who was that?"

Toshiro half-turned to glance in the direction Momo had walked, though she was long gone. "My friend," he told her, feeling quite proud. "She showed up after all."

He could see it flash in Karin's eyes, almost instantaneously: caution, and curiosity.

"Oh," Karin said simply. She obviously hadn't been expecting his friend to have been female, and Toshiro couldn't blame her. He rarely got along with females, since the majority of the ones he interacted with on a daily basis were shallow and boring and downright annoying. After a pause, she asked, "Why haven't I met her yet? Do I know her?"

Toshiro hesitated. "We only met this year," he said, choosing his words carefully. _There's no way you could know her; almost nobody would know her. _

"Oh," Karin said again. She looked at the space where Momo had been standing, and added, "She was cute." Her compliment was innocent enough, but her voice had an edge to it, for whatever reason, and her eyes were still guarded.

Toshiro didn't understand. Women were complicated.

"Well, we'll have to celebrate this," Karin said, suddenly eager. "Ichigo's throwing a party—" (probably, thought Toshiro, not in honour of the victory but rather in honour of his goal) "—for the players and managers and girls' team. You _have _to come. No copping out _this _time, Toshiro. We're not taking no for an answer."

He assumed by 'we' she was referring to herself and her brother. Inwardly, he grimaced. He wasn't much of a partygoer, but he was hard-pressed to refuse this.

Somehow reading the surrender in his face, Karin beamed and said, "It's Friday night, okay? We got the thumbs-up from our dad just now … see you there, Toshiro!"

She returned to where her siblings were, waiting for their dad to fetch the car, for which there had been no available parking space until the next block over.

Toshiro half-turned to head for the bench where his own things were waiting for him to take them home, but he was again intercepted by an unmistakeable tremendous bust.

"Oh! Captain!" said Rangiku brightly, beaming down at him. "Good game! You played well!"

Toshiro glared at her briefly, then sighed and said, "You didn't even watch the game, did you, Matsumoto?"

Rangiku's signature pout appeared almost instantly. "You have no faith in me," she whined, but after a moment of silence, added meekly, "I watched the last thirteen minutes. I was working. _Honest_."

Toshiro rolled his eyes and started walking toward the bench anyway. Rangiku followed, as he should have expected she would.

"You know Captain, I _also _came in time to watch you chatting up Kurosaki's little sister," Rangiku grinned, sly as a cat.

By now, Toshiro was tired of rolling his eyes and sighing, so he simply kept a stone-cold face and told her, "You're assuming things again. Quit it." He'd like to believe he hadn't ever 'chatted up' anyone in his entire life.

Rangiku frowned and leaned down closer, secretive. He hardly saw the need for this action since they were surrounded by groupies and families too busy with their own celebrations and consolations to be eavesdropping.

"I don't know if you know this, Captain, and I don't know if I should tell you—"

"—then don't tell me, Matsumo—"

"—but Karin-chan really likes you!" Rangiku finished, speaking over him in a bubbly voice. "A girl you don't hate, who plays your sport, and is just the right height for you has finally showed up and _already has feelings for you_. How perfect is that?"

Toshiro kicked an empty soda can in his path, keeping his eyes on the ground as he walked. "Just because someone meets that criteria wouldn't necessarily mean I'd be happy with her, Matsumoto."

"Happy," Rangiku echoed, lapsing into a thoughtful pause. The next few steps were wordless and synchronized, Rangiku clasping her hands in front of her and chewing on her lip. When she talked again, her voice was somewhat melancholy. "Everyone just wants to be happy, don't they?"

Toshiro raised an eyebrow, wondering why the conversation had suddenly taken a serious turn. "Don't you?"

It had been meant to be a rhetorical question, but she took a bit too long to respond.

"Well, _I _think happiness is misunderstood," Rangiku said confidently. "Things don't make you happy. People do. You just have to find that one person who you _really _like, and you'll _always _be happy."

Being no stranger to the rumours that circulated about Rangiku and a mysterious fellow from some other school, Toshiro felt compelled to be concerned whether or not she was trying to defend him with this belief.

"_Are _you happy?"

Rangiku didn't hesitate. "Of course," she snapped, on the defensive now. "Why shouldn't I be? I'm passing my classes; I'm going to graduate. I'm fortunate enough to have a breathing family and four limbs that function and a roof over my head. I have great friends like you and – oh! Captain! I forgot to tell you! I met the sweetest girl the other day—"

Recalling, Toshiro said, "Momo Hinamori, right?"

Gasping, Rangiku's head whirled round to stare at him. "How did you know?"

"She's a good friend of mine. I heard it from her."

Before Rangiku could reply, a new voice interjected.

"Momo Hinamori?" said Izuru Kira, appearing suddenly at Rangiku's side.

"You know her too, Kira?" Rangiku said, eyes wide. "Wow, and I'd never even heard of her before yesterday!"

Kira shook his head and gave a one-shoulder shrug. "I hadn't really heard of her, either," he admitted. "Gin was the one who brought her up to me. It seems that they previously went to the same school."

"Gin knows her?" Rangiku exclaimed, looking utterly baffled. "He's never even mentioned her name to me, though! To think my new best friend has been hidden from me for so long!"

Kira chuckled at her distress. "If you want to talk to him, he came to watch the game. He's waiting for me by the north entrance."

"What – Gin – him? Here?" Stumbling over her words, Rangiku clumsily excused herself and took off in search of Gin. Toshiro watched her weave through the crowd from his peripheral vision, but he kept his attention trained on the blond boy who didn't appear to have any intention of leaving as well.

As they crossed the field, which was slowly clearing, Kira looked to be in the midst of heavy contemplation or some thorough introspection. Every few seconds he would pat the sweat on the side of his neck with his hand.

"Hey, Captain," Kira said slowly, "how long have you known Hinamori-kun?"

The pair arrived at the bench, and Toshiro bent down to assemble his belongings, scowling at his bag so that Kira couldn't see. "Why does that matter?"

From behind him, Kira hesitated, but then said, "I mean, uh, how much do you know about her?"

Toshiro stood, grunting as he lifted his bag over his head and slung it over the other shoulder. He faced Kira with narrowed eyes. "I don't know what you're getting at, Kira, but you'd better keep your hands and your friend _Gin_ away from Hinamori."

Kira blinked, taken aback by his abrupt aggression. He took a cautious step backward, a visible furrow forming between his brows. "You don't have to threaten me," he said, indignant and confused. "What did I do to get on your bad side all of a sudden?"

In Toshiro's mind, an image flashed of Momo, wearing her _real _smile that matched her kind eyes and lit up her whole face, followed by a rapid replay of the way she had been at the train station the other day, flustered and scared and hiding something, escaping.

A corner of his mouth tugged downward, his scowl deepened. Fingers fisted around the strap of his bag, he walked by Kira, shoulder knocking shoulder as he passed.

"You upset her," Toshiro said. "That's all."

_You scared her. You reminded her. You caused her pain._

Perhaps Kira didn't understand, but she was just too important to him for that to be overlooked.

* * *

**A/N: The rest of **_Anchor _**has now, at this point, been fully planned out. I'm pleased with how it looks and I'm going to devote half of my time to writing it. **

(The other half of my time will be reserved for the new fic I've just begun. If you're interested, check it out and let me know what you think. It's a Naruto fic; it's also a serious AU attempt involving an extremely peculiar unconventional, or "crack", couple – Sasori and Sakura. Actually, it might come as a surprise, but HitsuHina is probably one of the only somewhat-canonical pairings I ship. They're pretty canonical, right? I'd like to think so.)

**To celebrate **_Anchor's _**100****th**** review, I've eaten nothing but sweet-potato fries and ice cream all day. The consequence? I can't have dairy, and I'm suffering from extreme nausea as I type. For the next review milestone****, I'll stick to something like donuts.**

**As always, thanks to my incredible readers for reading. **

**Thoughts, comments, feedback, review? **


	10. Chapter 10

'_Keep giving me hope for a better day,  
__Keep giving me love to find a way  
__Through this heaviness, I feel I just need  
__Someone to say "everything's okay".'_

* * *

Momo sighed in resignation as she glanced at the clock in the library.

There was really no point in rushing; she would already receive a late mark and all their History classes from now on were independent revision anyway.

Momo took her time packing her things away, and even paused to chat with the librarian briefly before she left. As she pushed her way out of the doors, she noticed from the corner of her eye a pair of students rounding a corner to her right.

Class had begun, so the hallways were empty save for the three of them. Momo glanced quickly at the two; she recognized them from the times she used to watch the soccer team practice at lunch.

The very tall and broad fellow had vibrant orange hair, an angular face, and sharp features that somehow weren't daunting at all. He had a very open and friendly air, and he was walking and talking with the girl who Momo knew to be his younger sister. Her cropped black hair was familiar to Momo, and she recalled that this girl had some obvious feelings for Toshiro.

Momo had no reason to avoid them, and they were approaching from the direction she was headed. While she figured they would simply pass her by without a second glance, she was wrong.

She was _recognized_.

"Hey, aren't you that girl from the soccer game last night?" came a female voice, louder and deeper compared to Momo's, but not unkind.

She and her brother stopped walking, and Momo simply slowed her pace, hoping she wouldn't have to waste too much time talking to them.

Momo managed a soft smile and said, "Sorry, have we met?"

The other girl appeared somewhat taken aback by Momo's politeness, but she leaned forward around her brother and shook her head. "No, but I saw you talking to Toshiro after the game," she explained. "He said you're his friend."

Momo felt a surge of happiness from hearing that, but was determined not to let it show. However, she couldn't stop her smile from twitching a little wider.

"You're Toshiro's friend?" said the boy, looking surprised. His voice was rougher, a tad scratchy. He tilted his head and surveyed Momo. "Huh. I didn't think he could get along with a cute girl."

Momo turned her smile on him. "Oh, you're sweet," she said, off-handed.

He flashed a cocky grin in response, making her think that perhaps he wasn't _sincerely _sweet, but then he held out a hand. "Ichigo Kurosaki," he said. "Any friend of Toshiro's is a friend of ours."

She took his hand and shook it calmly, nodding and adding, "Momo Hinamori."

"And I'm Karin," piped Ichigo's sister, her mouth half-full. Momo glanced down to see that she was clutching a little plastic bucket of store-bought mini chocolate doughnuts. They must have spent their lunchtime walking outdoors, and were enjoying a spare period right now.

Unfortunately, Momo didn't have that luxury.

"Well," she said, bracing herself to leave, "it was nice to meet you both—"

"—hey, wait," Ichigo interrupted, stealing a chocolate doughnut from Karin's bucket and popping it whole into his mouth. She waited patiently for him to chew (just three times) and swallow. "We're throwing a party tomorrow night at our place. Why don't you come?"

Momo's fingers went cold. It had been a while since she'd last been to a party, and she didn't have very fond memories of high-school parties. They usually involved liquor and drugs and she had seen, and experienced, firsthand the effects of such things on some people.

"Oh, no, thanks," she began, "I'm not even a soccer player—"

"That doesn't matter," Karin cut in. "You can come, since Ichigo and I say it's alright. And if you're Toshiro's friend, you count as one of us."

"That's really not—" Momo waved her hand lightly in front of her, dismissing the invitation. "—you see, I'm not interested in parties—"

"Oh, come on," urged Ichigo. "You know Toshiro, Hinamori? He almost never comes to my parties. He's a stuck-up little bastard and he never has any fun."

Momo blinked, her lips squirming from indecision over whether to grin or frown.

"If you go, he'll definitely go."

She highly doubted that. Toshiro Hitsugaya was one of the most stubborn and independent people she had ever met.

But she knew what Ichigo was doing. It was the guilt trick. _Come on, Hinamori_, he was practically saying. _Do it for Toshiro. It's for his own good_. She hated this kind of thing, because she had always found it hard to say 'no' to earnest people. It went against her nature to deny good people anything that she could do for them.

Momo glanced at Karin as Ichigo sucked another chocolate doughnut in between his lips. Karin didn't look like she particularly agreed with Ichigo's last statement, and the ounces of her that might have believed it were not happy to hear it.

Being a girl as well, Momo understood immediately, and without doubt. Karin had a crush on Toshiro, and Momo was a potential roadblock in her way.

While a part of Momo felt inclined to oblige Ichigo, another part did not want to make an enemy out of a girl she hardly even knew. Not to mention this girl was a friend of Toshiro's, and the least she could do was try to get along with her.

"I'm really busy," she said, shaking her head gently. "I'm sorry, I really can't. I mean, I'd like to" – this was a lie – "but I'm trying to put together my application for university right now, so it's just really not a good time."

Karin bit into a doughnut, nodding. Momo couldn't help but see it as a nod of approval.

Ichigo swallowed the remains of his doughnut and grimaced. 'Aw, that's too bad then," he said, shrugging lazily and shoving his hands in his pockets. "But try to convince him to go, alright? We wanna see our Captain there!"

Momo smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. That she could probably handle. "Will do."

"Thanks. It was nice meeting you," Ichigo said, raising a hand. Beside him, Karin gave a smile that was friendly enough (despite her cheeks being stuffed full of food) and Momo mirrored the gesture.

"See you," she said to the pair of them, and took off for her classroom, already extremely late.

As she knocked lightly on the door and turned the knob to let herself in, Momo wondered if anything would change if she decided to take Ichigo up on his invitation. A party sounded like great fun, but she tended to associate them with her past.

After receiving a warning from Kurotsuchi-sensei not to let her tardiness happen again, Momo retreated to her desk. Toshiro was slacking off, Chapter 9 open in front of him but completely ignored. He was slumped down in the seat, ankles crossed, fingers drumming noiselessly on the textbook's pages.

"Where've you been?" he asked her, eyes flickering to the clock on the wall.

She read the time from the clock at the front of the room. Class was nearly half-over. She sighed, "Whew, I'm _really _late, aren't I? But … it wasn't entirely my fault."

"Whose was it?"

Momo glanced sidelong at Toshiro and said, "Your friend Ichigo and his sister held me up for quite a bit."

"Ichigo?" Toshiro sat up and looked at her. "What did he want?"

"His sister somehow recognized me from last night's game," Momo explained, still perplexed at how this detail had come to be. "Ichigo invited me to his party that's tomorrow night, and he really wants you to come. I said I'd try to persuade you."

"Forget about it," Toshiro advised flatly. "I never go."

"Why not?" Momo demanded. "It's your victory. And you're the _Captain_. I think you have a responsibility to go!"

"Responsibility?" he scoffed.

"For morale, or something," she said. "You won together, you celebrate together. Team spirit, right?"

"Trust me, they have enough spirit without me."

"Come on," she prompted. "I told Ichigo I'd persuade you to come."

The corner of his mouth lifted. "Then I hate to tell you, Hinamori, but you're fighting a losing battle." Toshiro stifled a yawn, looking once again at the clock. "What about you? You said he invited you too, right?"

"Right," Momo said carefully, "but I don't think I can. I have a long list of things I want to get done before the weekend."

Toshiro didn't even have to spare her a glance to say with confidence: "That's a lie."

"It is _not _a lie!" she said. "I do!"

"You don't want to go just as much as I don't want to go," he said, his tone triumphant. "Just admit it."

Momo frowned at him for a few moments, but then told him in a small voice: "I do, I kind of want to. But …"

She trailed off, unable to finish. It wasn't that she didn't know why she wouldn't let herself go, but she didn't know how to put it into words. If she could, he probably wouldn't understand, anyhow.

Toshiro held up a hand. "Don't push yourself," he said calmly. "If you're not ready, you're not ready." He let his hand fall to the desk again, and after a few beats of silence, resumed his drumming rhythm. "Besides, it'd be a lot to take in. You'd hardly know anyone there."

Half of her heart was itching to meet these people, new faces and new smiles, to make more friends and secure herself a place in this new life. The other half was still desperate to keep hidden, to keep safe. Unsure of which to listen to, Momo simply took Toshiro's words for truth and nodded. "Yeah, you're right."

As Toshiro fiddled restlessly with his pens and his pages and his papers, Momo watched him. He was so reserved for such a popular person. She couldn't fathom how he managed to attract so many people just by keeping to himself. It was extraordinary to her. When she had been considerably popular, in her previous school, it had taken some effort on her part, to be as outgoing and likeable and charismatic as possible. Back then, most of it had come naturally, though.

"Hey Hitsugaya-kun," she said, slow and contemplative. "Why do _you_ avoid parties?"

His hands paused in position, holding a mechanical pencil like a dart, drawn back and poised to throw. Wordlessly, he set the pencil down and turned his eyes on her.

"All the teenage excitement," he said, sounding resentful. "I don't handle that well."

Thinking that he sounded very much like an old man, Momo bit back a giggle and smiled what she hoped to be an understanding smile.

"I don't get along with people that great, either," he added dully.

Momo's smile faltered. It was a straightforward comment, mostly true, and so unconcerned that it bothered her. "I think _we_ get along just fine," she countered.

"Not you," he said, waving a lazy hand dismissively. "Other people. I get easily annoyed, and easily bored, and then I get rude."

"You're _not _rude," Momo assured him.

"Actually, the girl who sits behind the sensei would beg to differ."

Momo craned her neck over the projector for a better look. "The girl with braids?"

From the corner of her eye, she saw him nod. "You were so late that she thought you weren't coming. She asked if she could take your seat for today."

"You could have said yes," Momo said. "I wouldn't mind, really."

"I would've minded," Toshiro snapped. "And I told her so. Then she said that she's come to all of my games and really wants to get to know me and I told her that I didn't care and I didn't need her to know me. So then she called me rude."

Momo smiled sadly. The girl kind of had good reason to react the way she had, but Momo would never say that aloud to Toshiro. Instead, she said, "Why wouldn't you want her to know you?" She found this comment peculiar in particular.

Toshiro shrugged. "I've got you to know me," he told her, frank and unembarrassed. "I'm fine with that."

A spot of warmth touched Momo, but it faded as another thought occurred to her. "It doesn't matter if you're rude sometimes," she said. "You're a good person."

Toshiro scoffed. "Never heard that one before."

Momo stared at him. "Believe me," she said firmly. "I knew someone who was so kind. But he wasn't a good person at all."

Here she closed her eyes, but she could sense him moving at her side, shifting in his seat, positioning his elbows on the desk.

"Who – who are you talking about?" he asked, so obviously curious, but trying to sound indifferent. Momo would have smiled at his attempt had she not been in the midst of a nostalgia she didn't like to feel.

"His name," she said quietly, "was Sosuke Aizen."

Toshiro was silent. Unmoving. She couldn't tell if that unnerved her more than the thought of Aizen right now.

"He was already a senior when I met him, and he was so nice, so gentle, so smart."

Everyone had admired him, respected him, swooned over him. He epitomized perfection and his calm demeanour and kind eyes had drawn not only Momo, but the entire student body and even the staff, under his spell without difficulty.

"He was a total charmer. He had everyone's – everyone's _approval_, everyone's attention. Somehow, it seemed like he could always understand everything," said Momo aloud. "He would never hurt anyone." She opened her eyes, and then said, "Except for me, I guess."

She gave a small shrug and leaned forward in her seat, running her hand along the surface of her textbook and splitting the pages at a random spot.

He must have realized that that was where she was leaving it, because he didn't press the matter. Instead, he tapped her on the elbow and said, "Hinamori."

Momo was starting to feel sick to her stomach. She could hardly believe she'd actually just talked about that. It was like a sacred wound, something she had never intended to open again, and now that she had, it stung. She could feel it in her, throbbing, coming back to life, and she had even dared _show _it to someone else—

"Hey. You okay?"

Throat knotted with nausea, Momo turned in the direction of his voice. For some reason, her vision had gone distant, sight lost in another world; she could hardly even get his features into focus.

It didn't really matter, though. She already had every last detail of his face memorized.

She tried to nod. It felt jerky, her neck was too tight.

"Here," Toshiro said, sliding a scrap of notebook paper onto her desk and patting it with his hand. "It's my number. You need anything, you call me. Alright?"

She stared down at the gift, the scribbled little digits in his familiar hand, and slowly brought her fingers around it. Enclosed in her fist, trapped like a treasure.

* * *

Momo devoted the rest of her day to relaxation.

She had killed several hours after school at the downtown mall, hoping to clear her mind and fill it with the shallow and carefree interests of normal adolescents. She'd mostly window-shopped, found a few bargains, ate French fries and ice cream from the food court for dinner, and then proceeded to browse some of the indie boutiques that ran along the edge of downtown.

She even found herself slipping off to sleep at intervals of the train ride home.

When she returned to her apartment, her spirits were lifted considerably and she was no longer feeling sick.

"Hinamori-kun."

Momo jumped at the unexpected sound of her name. The key in her hand, poised to enter the lock, clattered against the silver knob and dropped to the ground in barely a second flat. A gasp escaped her.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," said the voice from behind her. It was beginning to sound familiar.

Without turning around, Momo began to formulate the speaker's image in her mind, matching that low drawl with the glum expression that had stuck in her memory the first time she'd seen it.

It was the blond boy, who had been with Gin that day.

"You," she said softly, spinning on her heels to face him. Shakily, she lowered herself and picked up her keys. "Who are you, again?"

"Izuru Kira," he said, immediate. His eyes flickered to her closed apartment door. "Mind if I invite myself in for a bit?"

She was slow to respond. "Um … r-right, sure. Just for a bit, though … it's kind of – um – late …"

"I understand. Pardon my intrusion."

Momo led him inside, the heavy footfalls that followed her feeling somehow ominous. She couldn't discern his intentions from that dry look he constantly wore, so she steeled herself, ready to meet with any aggression. For that reason, she left the door open wide.

"I'm only here to talk to you," he said, sensing her hostility.

Momo wanted to send him away. She wanted to slam her hand down, hard, on the tabletop and tell him that she had nothing to say to him. But a curiosity burned in her to know who he was, precisely, and how he had become involved with Gin, and with her. But first—

"How – how did you know where I lived?"

Kira laced his fingers together and cast his gaze upward. "Honestly?" he said, slow and unwilling. "I've .. well, I've kind of been tailing you for a while."

Momo's mouth fell open in disbelief. She could feel a headache brewing from all the noises inside of her, noises of incredulity, anger, confusion and panic. She spread her arms wide apart and glared at him as hard as she could.

"You – what, you've been _tail_– _why_? What do you want to know? What do you want from me?"

"I don't know!" Kira said, on the defensive. He raised his hands in innocence, in surrender. "Really, Hinamori-kun, I don't! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I don't know why!"

"Then _what_ are you tailing me _for_ if you don't even know _why_?" Momo spat, exasperated.

"I – well, see, Gin kind of put me up to it."

_Gin_. Of course. She should've known.

Momo eased her glare, and studied Kira intently. She was starting to see it now, that he didn't seem so much like a villain. He looked almost pitiable, just as confused as she.

Even still, that didn't change the fact that he was the villain's _spy_. She remained on her guard.

"What does Gin want from me?" she asked. "Do you know?"

Kira shrugged. "I don't. He did _tell_ me a bit about you, but not about what he wants from you…"

"What did he tell you?" she demanded.

"Well … you know, we were friends since middle school. We met in a soccer league. We hung out a bit, but I moved away and we hadn't talked since senior year. He contacted me to ask _specifically _whether or not a girl named Momo Hinamori lived in this town or went to my school."

Momo narrowed her eyes. So they'd been _looking _for her.

Kira continued, "I found out that you did, so I told him. Then he started asking me questions about you. He wanted to know how you looked. He wanted to know where you lived. He wanted to know how you acted, who your friends were, and he wanted to know what you talked about to other people."

"What," Momo whispered, taken aback, "what, is he afraid I'm going to give up all his secrets?"

Kira paused and raised an eyebrow. "You know Gin's secrets?"

Momo said vaguely, "Not his. Someone else's." She shook her head and said, "Continue."

He complied. "So I asked him who you were and how he knew you, and he explained that you used to go to _his _school."

"Which is true, but we weren't friends or anything," Momo was quick to clarify. "Don't get the wrong idea."

Kira frowned. "Sorry to tell you, but that's the idea he gave me."

She sighed in frustration. It was just like Gin to do that.

"He said that you were friends, that you were his best pal's girlfriend."

Momo kept quiet. She felt almost ashamed to claim that as truth.

"Sosuke Aizen?"

He didn't seem to want to continue without her approval of his statements, so she impatiently nodded, arms folded across her chest.

"Yeah, I heard a lot about that guy, too." He took in a sharp breath, and it came out slow. "Quite the ... _interesting _character."

He looked at her furtively, almost as though he were waiting for her permission to keep talking about Aizen.

Momo bit her lip and nodded. "Interesting," she repeated. "Not the word I would use."

Kira swallowed. "I – I know," he said, "how he was to you. I – I mean, I don't _know_, I got the, like, the _gist _of it, from Gin—"

"He was abusive," Momo said loudly, feeling hateful. "He was two-faced and manipulative and completely psycho." She uncrossed her arms and brought her palms down hard on the countertop. "You wanna know something? That gang you're a part of—"

"—hey, okay, I'm _not _a part of that _gang_!" Kira practically shouted, astonished. "Everyone's suspecting me just through association with Gin! Sure, I know all the names of the people in that crowd, but I've never even seen one of their faces other than Gin's!"

Momo ignored him. "That gang isn't Gin's at all. Aizen started it. It started with this group of boys who he had all wrapped around his finger in freshman year, and they started following him like pups, then they all but god-worshipped him—"

"Yeah, I heard that Aizen was the gang founder, and that the other guys in there sometimes won't listen to Gin."

The clock in her kitchen read nine-twelve. Momo wondered when Kira intended to leave.

"I'm aware that I'm on the bad guy's 'side' right now," Kira said quietly. "I understand that you're the victim here, Hinamori-kun."

Momo narrowed her eyes, unconvinced.  
"The victim," she said slowly. "Are you sure you understand?"

Kira gave her a pointed look, one that said he had expected this response. "Hinamori-kun. I understand all of it. And none of it was your fault. You weren't responsible for any of it, _Aizen _was. He's the kind of guy who can't be _changed _– he just hid himself, temporarily, to get what he wanted."

Momo sniffed, nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. "But to this day, I'm still not sure what it _was _he wanted." She paused to glance at the time once again, and opened her mouth to inform Kira that it was past her self-set bedtime – she was even starting to feel slightly drowsy – but something else poured out instead.

"Uh – so, um, you _do _know all about me, I guess … it – I'm not gonna lie, it's kind of … well … it makes me a little nervous, to think that a total stranger just, like—"

"Sorry," Kira blurted, getting up from the table so urgently that his chair wobbled precariously on its hind legs as he stood. "Uh – yeah, sorry, I didn't think about you at all – I'm probably making you really uncomfortable right now … and scared, I bet … I mean, I'm really sorry if you feel like I've invaded your privacy—"

_Yes, you have, and on multiple fronts_, Momo wanted to point out, but she bit her tongue with that one and forced a smile. At the very least, he was trying, and he was apologizing, and he seemed rather sincere, for a stalker.

"It's okay," Momo told him, despite still feeling a little unsettled. However, most of the uneasiness was beginning to wane into something like assurance, relief. "It's … I'm starting to feel a bit … I don't know, _glad_, that someone actually … knows. I suppose you've figured it out by now, but I've kind of been avoiding other people this year so that I could keep my—" _(secrets? Crazy past?) _– "keep all that dark stuff down. It's … been hard."

Kira lowered his eyes, not looking at her. There followed a stiff silence.

"Um … Hinamori-kun," said Kira, and took a step towards her door. "Now – now that we – well, after all this, do you think you could … trust me?"

Momo raised her eyebrows. Was this a trap?

His expression sure wasn't making it seem like one. Those pitiful eyes, that long face, the voice gone slightly sour with tension and faint desperation.

"You want me to … _trust _you," she repeated, in disbelief. "To trust _you_."

He swallowed visibly. "I can see why you have a hundred reasons not to, at this point," he said, "but I – I want us to be friends. Now that I know all that troubling stuff about you, I want to _help_. I've never really been Gin's _underling _or anything like that, so don't misunderstand – I only kept my eye on you all this time because I thought it was more like doing a favour for a pal; he just asked me to, so I did – and now that I, like, know all of this, it—it's gonna bother me. I see the way you struggle and I know that it's hard. So … if you ever need to talk about it – I mean, I'm guessing Hitsugaya doesn't know?"

Momo paused, and frowned. "Not yet," she said quietly. "I don't want him to know everything yet."

"Then," said Kira, "in the meantime, you can come to me about it when something comes up?"

It wasn't poised like an open invitation; it was more of a request, waiting for a sure answer.

"A-Alright," Momo said, pressing her lips into a mild smile and escorting him out into the hallway.

As she stood by her apartment door, waving half-heartedly and watching Kira turn the corner at the end, she realized that she was no longer tired. In fact, she was wide awake. She felt her insides warming as her wave fell still and she lowered her hand. It was a nostalgic feeling, sweeter than it was bitter, and a feeling she hadn't felt since she'd first spoken to Toshiro: it was the feeling of making a friend.

She wanted to feel it more. She realized that she enjoyed being known, and recognized, having people like Karin and Ichigo call her in the corridor, or having Kira assure her that she hadn't been the problem.

And with that realization, Momo's mind was made up.

* * *

"I'm going to go to the party tonight."

Toshiro paused in eating his food. He had joined her for another quiet breaktime in the library today. It was Friday, though, and breaktime was cut shorter than usual.

"Kurosakis' party?"

Momo nodded, and forked another morsel off of her cinnamon roll. "Yes. I was thinking about it last night. I want to go. I might actually have fun. I want to meet more people."

Toshiro didn't hesitate. "Then I'll go, too."

She glanced up, shocked, the fork halfway to her mouth, still in midair. Wrinkling her brow, she said slowly, "But I thought you didn't like parties."

He met her baffled eyes. "I thought you didn't, either."

"Then," she said, with a coy smile, "maybe I'm a masochist."

Toshiro polished off his last sheet of snack seaweed and tossed the wrapper on the table. "If you're a bird, I'm a bird."

"What?"

He frowned, looking slightly surprised. "You've never heard that?"

"Heard what?"

"That quote."

"No! Where is it from?"

"A movie."

Momo stared hard at Toshiro. She hadn't really pegged him as the sort to watch movies in his spare time. She could much more easily envision him calling it a waste of time.

"What does it mean?" she asked.

"I am what you are, I do what you do," he said simply. "I go where you go."

Momo blinked.

She watched him lean far back in his seat and reach back behind him, dropping his trash into the rubbish bin and stifling a yawn.

A tiny laugh escaped her.

Toshiro returned to a proper sitting position and raised an eyebrow. "What's so funny?"

She merely smiled, ducked her head and shook it slightly.

It was just that Ichigo had been right about that, when Momo had doubted it.

And never had she been happier to be proven wrong.

* * *

**Thanks for all your support for this story! To answer one reviewer's question, this story has roughly 17 chapters mapped out for it. Please look forward to them!**

**As always, please leave me your  
thoughts/comments/feedback in a review!  
**


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